Country Article / Postcards

Pioneers, Look East

Date: 06/13/2004

Dear Reader,

Since my car began climbing the steep mountain pass in the Carpathians, I've seen more cattle than cars; they saunter home in the middle of the road, cowbells chiming their passage past roadside stalls with dried pork bellies, smoked cheeses, jars of honey and bottles of violent looking home brew.

I'm two hours from Bucharest, in the Carpathian foothills, a ski resort in winter--full of ruddy-cheeked types with ski-goggle tans and trousers with ice-axe loops--but warm now in early summer. For lunch, I have wild boar instead of roast bear, but the dense woods that surround this area--the Transylvanian Alps--are home to both.
The scenery here is stunning, the atmosphere almost medieval; I pass ramshackle Gypsy villages and horse drawn hay carts. But that's soon to change.

Romania is on the way up: it's hoping to join the EU in 2007; average growth is 5%; inflation is down; it has the second largest economy in Central Europe and is actively encouraging U.S. inward investment (which exceeded $720 million last year); it became a full member of NATO this year and is courting U.S. military bases; Bechtel has just won a $2 billion contract to build a new highway here--the largest road project in Eastern Europe.

A window of opportunity exists in Romania right now, especially in the residential real estate market.

Land here is cheap if title can be established. A typical mountain acre for construction in the Sinaia region ranges from $1,400 to $7,000; you can buy a 1,290-square-foot, three-bedroom village house in Bran for $35,000 (negotiable); a five-room, 1,070-square-foot apartment in alpine Brasov costs $65,000 (very negotiable).

Also available is a development of new holiday homes in Azuga, in the heart of the Prahova Valley (where you can ski in the winter, and hunt and fish during the summer)--2,260-square-foot, four-bedroom apartments with en-suite bathrooms. For more, see: http://www.ferndale.ro.

Romania is Central Europe in its original form--raw at times, yet peculiarly engaging from an investment point of view; a chance to don your pioneer's hat and seriously consider looking east.

Jocelyn Carnegie
For International Living

P.S. I'm in Romania scouting for the Key Club apartment in Bucharest, a Mediterranean enclave in the heart of the eastern Baltic. This city retains its atmosphere as Romania's genteel capital. More next week.