Bucharest blues?

Romania has been the most recent CEE country to see rapid development and lucrative returns, but now the credit crisis has worked its magic and the future is uncertain. At the end of 2008, ‘Eurobuild CEE’ sat down in Bucharest with LEADING FIGURES IN THE ROMANIAN MARKET to find out more about how the country IS BEING affected. The meeting took place just after the GRI CONFERENCE in the same city, where senior European property figures gathered to discuss the crisis and its effects on the CEE region. THERE the bankers present dampened any hopes for a return to lending in 2009, certainly in the first half of the year Richard Stephens, ‘Eurobuild CEE’: Mark, in 2007 Fabian made a couple of property purchases. Do you regret them in the light of recent developments? Mark Owen, Fabian: Not at all. No-one foresaw the market changing so massively. Our drive was to buy properties in 2007, particularly in the residential market and not just