The number of housing units completed in Romania (chart) plunged by 25.9% y/y to 11,360 in the first quarter of the year, according to data published by the statistics office INS. It is the lowest number of housing units reported in the first quarter since 2018.
Measured by the number of housing units delivered, Romania’s residential market experienced a mild contraction in 2023 (2.6% fewer housing units completed despite a 0.9% larger volume of construction works for residential buildings) after a moderate 2.7% y/y advance in 2022 (matched by +2.5% rise in the volume of construction works).
The lower number of housing units delivered in Q1 2024 confirms to some extent the 34.1% y/y contraction in the volume of construction works dedicated to the residential projects in the quarter, which caused an unexpected overall 7.1% y/y decline in the construction companies’ volume of activity in the period.
The regions where the steepest decline was reported are South-East (-41.6% y/y) and Central (-38.5% y/y). However, the Bucharest metropolitan area, which concentrated 27.8% of the total housing units reported in Q1, also witnessed a major 32.4% annual decline.
