INS: A quarter of Romanian homes and apartments sit unoccupied

The price of housing in Romania is still rising, and rents are constantly getting more expensive. However, 2.5 million houses and apartments are declared unoccupied. That is, a quarter of the homes in Romania, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics. In Bucharest alone, there are over 218,000. A good part are empty, say specialists, and wait for years to be occupied. Others could be rented, they say, without a contract and income declared to the Tax Office.

In the 2021 census, one in five homes in Bucharest was declared unoccupied. In total, there are 218,279 apartmeemnts and houses that Bucharest residents said were unoccupied, almost 160% more than in the 2011 census. This does not mean that they are all empty, experts say. Some are rented out without legal forms, they believe, because the owners do not want to pay tax and health insurance contributions on the income they earn.

Another part is put up for sale or rent. But there are also enough of those that are marked with the years “zero people” for maintenance. If these were also put up for rent or sale, they could drive down the rates. But the owners, for various reasons, leave them unoccupied, although they have maintenance costs and taxes.

Analysts say that Romanians do not necessarily expect to make a profit from owning a house or apartment, but rather see it as a way to keep their money safe. Three quarters of Romanians’ wealth consists of houses and apartments, according to data from the National Bank. In second place is Iași County, where data collected by the INS in the 2021 census shows that over 127,000 homes are uninhabited. Next are Argeș, Prahova, Bihor, Timiș and Cluj. There are a total of almost 10 million homes in Romania. Of these, 2.5 million are declared unoccupied, according to Romanians’ declarations, that is, a quarter. This includes not only secondary or holiday homes, but also those that fall under the category of main homes.