The Internet Pricing Illusion: How to Find Out What a Home is Really Worth. Major Mistakes Blocking Real Estate Transactions

The real estate market is going through a moment of partial gridlock, caused by a widening gap between sellers' expectations and buyers' budgets. While owners set optimistic prices, influenced by other online ads, buyers tend to undervalue properties. The specialists in the field consulted by “Adevărul” explain the mechanisms by which the “correct price” can be reached, the only point at which the transaction becomes possible.

Press conference on the occasion of the Bucharest Real Estate Fair. PHOTO: Inquam Photos

Determining the true value of a property has become a difficult task even for professionals, in a market lacking transparency on final transaction prices. Most sellers fall into the trap of comparing their own home with active ads on profile sites, not knowing that those amounts are just wishful thinking, not notarized realities.

The illusion of listing prices

One of the main mistakes that owners make is to refer exclusively to the existing offer in the market. Şerban Trîmbitașu, real estate agent, draws attention to the danger represented by the formation of the price based on the “neighbors” on the classifieds sites. It explains that an individual seller has limited access to information, he only sees what is listed, but he has no way of knowing which properties have sold, at what prices, how long they have been on the market until the sale and how much was negotiated from the original price. Lack of access to real data leads to artificially inflated prices.

“If you only look at what's on sale, prices can be artificially inflated. As an owner, let's say you have a two-bedroom apartment, for which you want 100,000 euros. You see that two neighbors are asking 100,000 and 102,000. Being emotionally involved, you end up thinking that yours is worth 105,000. In reality, you're helping the one asking 100,000 to sell the first one, the one at 102,000 remains on the market, and a new owner appears and lists it at 110,000, and so on.details Şerban Trîmbitașu.

To avoid this spiral, real estate agents use paid tools, where the guild updates the data when a property is sold, providing access to the listing price, the number of days on the market and the final price.

The same perspective is shared by Amalia Tudor, real estate agent, who points out that the strategy of asking more “to have room to spare” is often a mistake.

“Sellers want to be sure they're getting the best price for their property, which is natural. So sometimes they're tempted to ask for a higher price, thinking they'll have room to negotiate. But the danger is that they may not have anyone to negotiate with. Buyers often use price as their main filter in their searches, and an overvalued property may not even appear in their results. We, the agents real estate, we consider the most valuable comparables in a comparative market analysis. They show what prices other owners have been able to transact at. Based on these benchmarks and the adjustments applied according to the differences between the properties, we can establish a price margin as close as possible to the market reality.” explains Amalia Tudor.

She warns that a property that sits on the market too long becomes a “tainted property”. If in the first few weeks after listing the phone does not ring and there are no viewing requests, even though the exposure is correct, this is a clear sign of overvaluation. Moreover, successive price reductions are not viewed favorably by potential customers, which is why the starting price must be weighed with utmost care.

“One red flag that sellers can watch for is the level of interest from buyers. If they don't receive phone calls or viewing requests in the first few days or weeks—when the property is properly on the market and potential buyers have heard about it—then that's a clear indication that the price is too high and an adjustment should be considered. On the other hand, successive price cuts aren't welcome either. They can create the impression that the property has a problem or that the seller is under pressure to sell. Therefore, setting the listing price must be carefully considered and weighed from the outset.” says Amalia Tudor.

The math of adjustments: the floor and the renovations

If access to the agents' databases is not possible, sellers can try a more complicated option, suggested by Şerban Trîmbitașu: requesting an opinion from the notaries in the area, who have the transaction history of the last six months, although they are not obliged to provide the data. Once a reference price of the area is known, the value of the apartment must be mathematically adjusted according to the specific minuses or pluses. Şerban Trîmbitașu offers some clear percentage benchmarks:

“If you know the actual trading prices, you can make the right adjustments. For example, the top floor in a building with an elevator can reduce the price by about 10%. A fourth floor apartment in an old building without an elevator can have an adjustment of up to 20%. The ground floor can mean a decrease of about 5%.” explains Trîmbitașu.

The condition of the apartment also plays a crucial role, and current labor and material costs must be deducted from the sale price of an unrenovated unit. A complete renovation for three rooms in Bucharest reaches at least 30,000 euros today. Therefore, if a similar, but renovated, apartment sold for 130,000 euros, the one that needs major repairs should be priced around 100,000 euros.

How the buyer calculates their fair offer

On the other side of the fence, buyers need a strategy to avoid unrealistically undervaluing properties, thereby risking missing out on good deals. The experts' recommendation is to carry out your own market research, by creating a reference interval.

The method proposed by Şerban Trîmbitașu involves the identification of extremes in an area. Take the example of the Tineretului district, where the “weakest product” (old block, ground/mezzanine, unrenovated), which can have a price of 1,000 euros/sq m, and the “best product” (penthouse, new block, parking), which reaches 3,500 euros/sq m, are sought.

“The buyer can create a reference range – from 500 to 500 euros or from 1,000 to 1,000 – and see where the desired property falls. The ideal is to identify about ten comparables: similar apartments in number of rooms, year of construction, floor, compartmentalization and condition”, specifies Trîmbitașu.

An essential aspect for buyers is to focus on the immutable elements of the property. Orientation, structure, positioning in the block and neighborhoods are aspects that cannot be changed, regardless of the renovation budget, which is why they must come before interior finishes.

Patience and information, the key to success

Amalia Tudor notes that at the beginning of their search, buyers need time to understand the market and will inherently miss the first opportunities until they become familiar with the real prices. His recommendation is that they should be proactive from the online selection stage.

“Buyers are becoming more informed, they're watching ads on the Internet, they're removing ads from their homes that don't match what they're looking for. And I really recommend that they ask as many things as possible over the phone and schedule viewings only on the ones that are closest to what they're looking for.” concludes Amalia Tudor.

The prices of new and old apartments increased during the past year in all major cities, according to the average prices requested by owners in the ads published on a well-known real estate platform in Romania.

Thus, Cluj-Napoca is still the most expensive city in Romania, with an average cumulative price of 3,228 euros/m2 in December 2025, 9.4% higher compared to December 2024.

On the other hand, in December 2025 the biggest increase compared to the previous year was registered in Bucharest, where the asking prices increased by 20.3%, to 2,262 euros/sqm. Based on this increase, the Capital became almost as expensive as Brașov, a city where prices increased by 8.1%, up to 2,280 euros/sqm. Two other cities where the average price exceeded the symbolic threshold of 2,000 euros/sqm are Constanța (2,036 euros/sqm, +6.5%) and Craiova (2,034 euros/sqm, +18.5%).

Oradea recorded in December 2025 the fourth highest percentage price increase during 2025 (+11%), but even in this context it remains among the cities with the lowest average sales prices in the country, with a cumulative average price of 1,851 euros/sqm. The only large city in Romania with lower average prices than Oradea is Iași, where the lowest percentage increase was recorded, by 2.9%, to 1,760 euros/m2.