What Houses Romanians Prefer – Two Specialists’ Radiography
Romanians are starting to pay more attention to personalizing details and finishes when building a house and, especially, to costs and comfort, two specialist in the residential building market told us. Here is more about what houses Romanians prefer, a radiography of tastes and preferences in a sector in continuous development.
Our first interlocutor is Florin Capatinescu, a structural engineer with Icase.ro, a house plan website. His first answer to the question above comes from a budget perspective. “In general, Romanians prefer houses that match an at most 100,000 Euro budget which means a turnkey price. Normally, a turnkey house involves costs of about 400 Euros per built square meter, at an average total surface of 200 square meters, which means a house assessed at 80,000 Euros. Our offer is the first stage concerns a shell house, which is 100-120 Euros per square meter, a third of the final price. The client then opts for finishes based on his/her budget. In general, they prefer average finishes which range within the 400 Euros price mentioned earlier. Premium finishes raise the final costs to up to 700 Euros per square meter. But, important to highlight, from this perspective, home design is starting to become a profitable niche because people here are improving their tastes and valorize quality of life. So home design has a very good perspective”, Florin Capatinescu told Houzbuzz.com
As concerns the structure of a home, Romanians definitely go for attic houses. “In terms of costs, these are cheaper because of the typical resistance structure, with a single concrete floor”, he argued. As concerns the design styles, he says modern houses are becoming more appealing to Romanians, especially young couples.
He admits there’s currently a tendency on the market concerning a miniaturization of houses, whether we look at single level homes or prefabricated houses which relates to people becoming more aware of their practical needs.
Vladimir Ghiga, an architect with Uberhause.ro, gives us an exhaustive description of Romanians’ preferences in terms of houses. “In terms of budget, Romanians allocate between 50,000- 60,000 and 80,000”, he said.
A house doesn’t come down to a picked plan, as far as the customer is concerned, but involves more than that, he warned. “We have noticed some customers have a multitude of information sources which don’t always provide quality data and therefore many come to us without knowing what they look for. There’ve also been problems with land lots they bought and where it later turned out we couldn’t build on them. This is why we are also offering free consultancy for land acquisition to avoid this problem”, Vladimir Ghiga explained.
Romanians have a profound urge to personalize their homes. “This is why we came out with a mere informative package in terms of house plans because we know all customers want their homes personalized. In many cases, some of them ask for 2-3 plan changes, but sometimes small changes involve big modifications of the resistance structure”, the architect underlined.
This personalization trend is also reflected in the architectural style customers prefer. “Our clients’ age varies between 30-35 and 45 and seek modern structures. But modern doesn’t necessarily mean expensive finishes, as many may expect, but modern in terms of volumetry and functions, these are homes so to say slightly modern. They prefer to have houses a little different than the majority, but still matching their budget. For the area around Bucharest and large cities, client go for attic houses. More popular are becoming the timber frame houses, an unexpected trend, because Romanians were wary about this choice. But access to correct information has made them become aware of the advantages of this type of houses, such as elasticity in case of earthquakes”, he further explained.
Vladimir Ghiga, too, points out the small house trend is starting to manifest in Romania as well. “We have felt this miniaturization current is becoming more active and discussed that with our customers. People are now starting to return to the small sized houses Romanians once lived in, when a family of 3-4 could live decently in a single floor house, maybe with a roof deck or an attic for extra storage space, so that they cut back on the budget and maintenance”, he concluded.
