The residential market accelerates in June: București pulls up a weaker half-year

București hits a record, the rest of the country stays in the red: what the first half of 2026 looks like

Official statistics show a two-speed residential market. Nationally, in June 2026 there were 51.808 total real estate transactions, 2.615 more than in June 2025, according to ANCPI data published via Agerpres. The increase is visible, but comes after months of declines, and for the entire first half of 2026 the number of apartments and other individual units sold is approximately 9% below the 2025 level, according to an analysis by România Liberă based on data from ancpi.ro.

At the same time, București clearly dominates the apartment segment: in June 2026 alone, 4.276 apartments were sold in the Capital, the highest monthly volume this year, according to an Economica.net analysis based on ANCPI statistics. This performance contrasts with the slower or even negative evolution in many counties, where the number of units sold in the first six months is below that in 2025.

In June 2026, almost 1 in 3 apartments sold in Romania was in București, confirming the Capital’s position as the engine of the residential market.

In many county capitals, activity is much lower. For example, ANCPI statistics cited by Agerpres for June show that Timișoara, Iași and Cluj-Napoca lead among large cities in terms of total real estate transactions, while Alexandria, Sfântu Gheorghe and Slobozia are at the bottom. Regional differences are important for any buyer or investor trying to understand where liquidity is concentrated and how easily a home can be resold.

Why June is booming: the VAT effect and new project deliveries

June 2026 cannot be viewed in isolation. An important part of this transaction peak is related to the calendar, not just to structurally higher demand. The VAT changes for housing, which came into force in August 2025, created a “window” in which apartments contracted with reduced VAT must be delivered by 31 July 2026 in order to keep the preferential rate. Independent analyses based on ANCPI data, such as those aggregated by the platform minside.ro and discussed in specialist communities, clearly show that developers accelerated inspections and handovers in May, June and July 2026 precisely to meet the deadline.

This context explains why volumes in București are strongly up compared to June 2025, while at the half-year level the market remains down. In May 2026, for example, București had already recorded an increase of almost 16% in transactions with individual units compared to May 2025, while some counties, such as Iași, posted declines of over 20%, according to the same processing of ANCPI data.

In the short term, this “wave of handovers” can distort perceptions of the market. A record volume in one month does not automatically mean a new boom cycle, but rather a compression in time of deliveries that would have taken place anyway. For the buyer, this means more turnkey options in new projects in large cities in the coming months, but it does not guarantee that the same pace will be maintained in autumn.

Prices stay high despite falling transactions: how Romania looks in the European context

Another paradox of the market is the combination of lower volumes over the whole of last year and the first months of 2026 and prices that continue to rise. Economica.net showed that in 2025 the number of apartments sold nationwide was about 5% lower than in 2024, based on ANCPI data, while other analyses, such as the REMAX Europe report cited by the publication Piata Financiara, indicate an average increase in housing prices in Romania of around 14% in 2025, to around the threshold of 2.000 euro/sq m.

Indicele Imobiliare.ro confirms the same trend of price resilience in the first part of 2026, with moderate but generally positive monthly variations. In parallel, international statistics compiled by the Bank for International Settlements and taken over by FRED show that real house prices in many countries stagnated or even fell at the end of 2025, while Romania remained on an upward trend. In short, homes here are still cheaper relative to incomes in the West, but are becoming more expensive at a faster pace.

For the first-home buyer, this context means additional pressure on the budget, especially in large cities. For the investor, rising prices in a market with a relatively limited supply of quality new projects and demand structured around major university and business centers can still justify purchases, but only with careful analysis of net yield and liquidity risk over a 5–10 year horizon.

The liquidity map: București, Timișoara, Cluj, Iași vs. the rest of the country

At county and county-capital level, monthly centralized ANCPI data show a clear concentration of transactions in a few hubs. In June 2026, the highest number of total real estate transactions among county capitals, excluding București, was recorded in Timișoara, Iași and Cluj-Napoca, according to the ANCPI release picked up by Agerpres. These cities benefit from large universities, IT and industrial centers and a significant stock of new projects, which keeps them attractive to buyers and tenants.

By contrast, small markets such as Alexandria, Sfântu Gheorghe or Slobozia report a few dozen transactions per month. Lower liquidity means that a home can stay on the market much longer, and the gap between the asking price and the transaction price can be larger.

For anyone considering a purchase with an investment perspective, a few criteria become essential when comparing cities:

• The annual volume of transactions reported by ANCPI, as an indicator of liquidity.
• The average price per square meter compared to the average local income, based on analyses such as those by REMAX Europe and BNR reports.
• The structure of the renter market, where specialized data exist, such as rental analyses carried out by online platforms for București and the major cities.
• Infrastructure and urban development plans, which can support or hinder demand in the long term.

What these figures mean for buyers and investors in 2026

For a buyer looking for their own home in București or in major cities, the record transaction levels in June 2026 signal more of a good time for selection than an urgent need to buy “so prices don’t go up further.” In the short term, the supply of newly completed apartments will be generous in projects that rushed to deliver before the deadline for reduced VAT.

Investors, however, need to be more cautious. A large volume of new units delivered over a short period can put pressure on gross rents and extend the time needed to find tenants, especially in areas with many similar developments. At the same time, macroeconomic scenarios remain cautious, and BNR reports and international analyses warn of affordability and over-indebtedness risks in the context of still relatively high interest rates.

In practice, 2026 looks like a transition year: after a slowdown in transactions in 2025 but with prices still rising, the market is being reshaped under the impact of VAT changes and massive deliveries of new projects in București and a few major regional centers. Informed buyers will use this window to negotiate more firmly in areas with large stock, while investors focused on rental income will carefully calibrate the relationship between price, potential rent and vacancy risk.

Sources

• România Liberă – Apartamentele se vând tot mai bine. Bucureștiul conduce detașat piața imobiliară
• Agerpres – Comunicat de presă ANCPI, tranzacții iunie 2026
• Economica.net – Boom imobiliar în iunie? Câte apartamente s-au vândut și ce se întâmplă cu piața
• Piata Financiara – Raport REMAX Europe: apartamentele, motorul creșterilor de prețuri în 2025
• Imobiliare.ro – Indicele Imobiliare.ro, evoluția prețurilor
• FRED – Real Residential Property Prices for Romania (date BIS)
• IasiLife – Piața imobiliară Iași, statistici ANCPI 2025-2026