The paradox of living in Romania. Why do we have so many vacant homes and how can this affect prices?

Romania is the country in Europe with the most privately owned homes, but also with millions of unoccupied homes, according to the latest statistical data, while prices have doubled in some cities in just six years. A real estate expert explained to “Adevărul” why we have so many unoccupied homes and how this can influence prices.

Romania has a lot of unoccupied housing. The Truth photo

In Romania there are over 2.5 million uninhabited homes, of which over 218,000 are in Bucharest, and another 62,000 are in the cities of Iași County. The number of unoccupied homes also exceeds 50,000 units in the urban environment of Constanța, Brașov and Timiș counties.

The last two censuses that took place in Romania in 2011 and 2021, the last one held in 2022 due to the restrictions during the pandemic, highlight a series of trends regarding the housing stock in Romania.

Thus, during the 10-year period between the two censuses, the total number of existing homes increased by 13.7% nationally, to over 9.9 million units, but at the same time the total number of unoccupied homes increased by 76.4%, from 1.4 million to over 2.5 million units, according to an analysis by Storia.

According to her, a quarter of the houses in Romania were uninhabited in 2021, a significant share especially if we refer to the evolution of house prices in Romania's big cities. In fact, a recent analysis carried out by Storia highlighted that the average price of a house in Bucharest increased by 70% from 2019 to 2025, to approximately 2,000 euros per square meter.

Prices have doubled in some cities

In addition, the analysis shows, during this 6-year interval, housing prices increased at an even faster rate in other cities of the country. For example, prices doubled in Brașov and Sibiu to approximately 2,200 and 1,900 euros per square meter, respectively, while in Cluj-Napoca prices increased by 93% to approximately 3,200 euros per square meter.

At the same time, prices have increased in the last 6 years by more than 80% in Constanța and Craiova, to approximately 2,250 and almost 2,000 euros per square meter, respectively, but also in cities with a lower number of real estate transactions, such as Oradea, where the asking prices have increased by 88% to almost 1,900 euros per square meter.

This data comes as the number of new homes coming to the market is expected to fall in the coming years, based on a reduction in the number of homes authorized by local authorities.

“In a real estate market characterized in recent years by constant price increases in all major cities of the country, the capitalization of uninhabited housing could help improve housing affordability by increasing the supply of housing available for sale and rent. That is why it is important to have information about how many homes are uninhabited, how this indicator has evolved over time and, above all, to understand the causes that have led to this phenomenon, which has intensified in the 10-year interval that has passed between the most recent population and housing censuses”, said Monica Dudău, Head of Marketing Real Estate Europe, OLX Group (Storia and OLX Real Estate in Romania).

According to the census methodology, a dwelling is considered occupied if there is at least one person who has lived continuously for at least 12 months before the census, or if there is at least one person who has lived for less than 12 months, but has expressed his intention to stay in that dwelling for at least 12 months.

Therefore, from the perspective of the census, the address of residence mentioned in the identity document is not taken into account when determining the number of people living in a particular dwelling. From this point of view, the data from the census are more relevant and closer to the real ones, but even so they do not reflect 100% the reality on the ground, as they are based on the self-reported statements of the respondents regarding the period of time spent at that address.

Why does Romania have so many unoccupied homes?

Asked if there is any connection between the price of apartments and unoccupied housing, Daniel Crainic, marketing director of imobiliare.ro, told “Adevărul” that there are two main reasons why we have unused housing or two main sources of the existence of these unused housing.

“First of all, in rural areas and small towns there is the massive phenomenon of depopulation – the aging of the population plus internal migration to larger localities where there are jobs, plus the phenomenon of external migration. Then, in big cities we have two main categories of unused housing – the very old ones and the very new ones (some are not yet inhabited, some are secondary homes, some are money placed for the future, for example for children when they grow up or various such cases).

There are also rented, but undeclared, homes. Let's not forget this very important category, because if you have tenants without a contract, at the census you declare that the apartment is empty”explained Daniel Crainic for “Adevărul”.

Insisting to tell us if there is any connection between the price of apartments and unoccupied homes, Daniel Crainic stated that things should be the other way around. “It should be the other way around, as long as we have a stock of empty homes, useful functional homes, we should build less, demand should be lower, prices should fall“, he explained.

He added that, at least in theory, “if 2.5 million homes were occupied, there would be no need to build new ones for many years to come”.

“However, in reality, in small urban areas and in rural areas, no one will move to them, this phenomenon will only increase. In large urban areas, there are specific situations that do not actually cancel the demand.

So, paradoxically, although a very large number of homes are declared unoccupied, very few are habitable and are based on the real need for housing in the large urban area”explained Daniel Crainic for “Adevărul”.

Bucharest: The share of unoccupied housing doubled to 21%

According to the census data, in 2021 the housing stock in Bucharest was made up of almost 1.04 million homes, an increase of 22.6% compared to 2011. In contrast, the number of unoccupied homes increased in this 10-year period at a significantly faster rate, by 137.5%, to over 218,000 units.

In this context, in the Capital, the share of unoccupied housing in the total housing stock has doubled from 10.9% in 2011 to 21.1% in 2021. Even so, this share is among the lowest among the country's 10 most important real estate markets.

At the same time, the data confirm the growth trend of the real estate market in Ilfov County, which surrounds the Capital. Thus, the total housing stock in the urban and rural areas increased in Ilfov County by 89%, to almost 282,000 homes, of which almost 80,000 were unoccupied in 2021. The number of homes in which no person officially lives increased in this county by 180%, and they represent 28.4% of the total housing stock.

These trends at the county level are even more pronounced in the case of localities located in the urban environment. Thus, Ilfov County has 130,000 homes in the urban environment, double compared to 2011, but the number of unoccupied homes has tripled to over 36,000 units, and these represent 28% of the housing stock of the cities in the county.

The number of unoccupied homes tripled in Iași County

The data available for the main counties of the country from the perspective of the development of the real estate market are not much different from those of Bucharest and Ilfov.

Among the counties that have a county seat with a relevant number of real estate transactions, Iași stands out for the largest increase in the number of unoccupied dwellings during the 10-year interval between the two censuses analyzed.

Thus, the housing stock of the county increased by 31.2% to over 406,000 dwellings located in urban and rural areas, of which 127,092 dwellings are uninhabited, which represents a threefold increase compared to 2011. In addition, Iași is also the county with the highest proportion of uninhabited dwellings: 31.3%, while this proportion was only 13.3% in 2011.

Of the 127,092 uninhabited homes in the county, almost 62,000 are in the urban environment, increasing almost four times compared to 2011.

And in Timiș County, there is a more than two-fold increase in unoccupied housing in urban and rural areas, from 32,300 units in 2011 to almost 85,600 units in 2021. In addition, in this county, the share of housing in which no one officially lives has increased more than twice, from 11.4% to 24.9%.

The share is even higher in the urban localities of the county (26.3%), through the lens of almost 52,200 homes. However, it is worth mentioning that Timiș is one of the only two major counties in terms of real estate where the housing stock increased by less than 10% during the 10 years (+9.6%).

For three other large counties in the country, the data indicate a doubling of the number of unoccupied homes when the figures from the urban area are combined with those from the rural area. These are Bihor (87,444 dwellings, up by 103%), Constanța (71,373 dwellings, up by 105%) and Brașov (74,305 dwellings, up by 112.2%), and the growth percentages are also similar if only unoccupied dwellings in the urban environment are taken into account.

The main difference, however, comes from the share of these homes in the total housing stock built in the county. For example, 29.5% of the houses in Bihor county are uninhabited, compared to 25.8% in Brașov and 22% in Constanța.

If we refer strictly to the urban environment in these three counties, about a quarter of the homes are also unoccupied. For example, the urban areas of Constanța and Brașov counties each have 53,000 uninhabited homes, with a share of 23.1% and 25.4%, respectively, of the total housing fund. Meanwhile, there are almost 42,000 unoccupied homes in the cities of Bihor county, which represents 28.2% of the total housing fund.

Cluj, Sibiu and Dolj, the counties with the lowest increase in uninhabited housing

Among Romania's main real estate markets, only three counties recorded increases of less than 100% in the number of unoccupied housing in urban and rural areas during the 10-year period analyzed.

Thus, in Sibiu county there were 51,086 unoccupied homes in 2021, 68.8% more than in 2011, while in Cluj county the increase was 57.9%, to 84,735 homes. The smallest percentage increase was reported by Dolj, where the number of unoccupied dwellings increased by 51.2%, to 77,273 dwellings located in urban and rural areas.

However, if we refer strictly to the urban environment, Cluj is no longer part of this category, since in the cities of the county the number of uninhabited homes increased by 109%, to 42,000 homes. Conversely, in the other two counties the increases remained below 100% and in the urban environment, both in Dolj (+88.6%, to 32,700 homes), and especially in Sibiu (+69.4%, to 31,000 homes).

Among the urban areas of the 9 analyzed counties, Cluj is the county with the lowest share of unoccupied housing in the total housing stock (19.3%) and the only one with a lower share than that reported by Bucharest, where the share is 21.1%.

In such a top, the urban areas of Dolj County occupy the next position on the podium, with a 22% share of uninhabited homes, followed by the urban areas of Constanța and Sibiu with a share of over 23%.