Although half of Romanian respondents said it was hard to find a home that matched all their criteria, 61% found their new home after viewing five or fewer properties, while 23% bought their home after looking at six to ten properties.
The same survey places Romania third by percentage of homeowners who don’t have a mortgage loan (46.5%), after Italy (49%) and Poland (54%). Romanians also rank last in Europe when it comes to buying a home using a mortgage loan, with just 14.9% resorting to that option.
At the same time, relatively few Romanians live in rented properties (11.5%), compared with Germans (53.5%) or Austrians (48.4%).
And one in four Romanians said they share their home with friends or family, well above the European average. At the opposite end are Germans (4.1%) and the French (5.9%).
Finding a home they could easily afford was more important for 55% of Romanians than finding their dream home, and over 30% said they lost out one buying at least one property to a higher bidder.
The survey showed 58% of Romanians offered the asking price on their home and just 25% negotiated the price for a better offer.
More than half of homeowners (57%) said they bought a home because they wanted to live in a property they owned and just 5.7% see home-buying as an investment, the lowest rate in Europe compared with Luxembourg (25%), France (21.4%) and Germany (19.6%).
For financing, Romanians primarily sought support from family (44.7%), followed by banks (22.1%) or friends (18.1%).
Nearly half of Romanians surveyed (47%) are considering moving or buying a home in the next two years, despite the fact that three out of five expect prices will rise and agree that since 2015 it has become increasingly harder for people just starting out to buy a home.
The survey was performed by Ipsos through online questionnaires in September 2020 and included respondents in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, UK and USA.