The Ghost County of Romania. The empty homes in our country would fill a county of the size of Brasov
Desert housing. Credit Line: Jam Press / Jam Press / Profimedia
In Romania there are over 250,000 unoccupied homes. Some are main residences, but the owners are gone, others are secondary residences but they are free and the third category are the holiday homes that are free and most of the year, according to the data of the National Institute of Statistics, consulted by HotNews.ro
The increase of the unoccupied homes between the two censuses is over 70%, while the speed with which the number of housing increases was only 13%.
Basically, a quarter of the total stock of housing is not accepted.
Most empty homes (in absolute terms) are in the capital: over 200,000
In relative terms, as a share of empty homes in the total stock of housing, Mehedinti is the county in which almost 40% of the homes are unoccupied, followed by Caraș Severin and Vâlcea.
Just over half of the empty homes are in the urban area (50.3%), and 80% of the holiday homes are in the rural area, according to statistics data.
The greater growth of the empty housing was Iasi (almost 3 times between the two censuses): from just over 41,000 deserted residences, to almost 130,000.
Most holiday homes are in Prahova, Buzău, Argeș and Cluj counties. The fewest are in Vaslui, Botosani and Maramureș.
Over 930,000 homes are declared as secondary homes, but their number is decreasing (at the 2011 census were 1.25 million residences declared as secondary).
