The final panel of Forbes Business Bridges 2025 brought together leading voices from both the American and Romanian real estate industries for a forward-looking discussion about the future of investment, sustainability, and urban innovation.
OANA IJDELEA – Managing Partner, Ijdelea & Associates
Now, looking at the overall economic environment, I’d say the traditional economic ties between the US and Romania have remained largely unchanged over the last 20 to 30 years. In particular, we’re talking about infrastructure, energy, logistics, defense and security, and telecommunications. On top of that, we also have large services companies, and IT and tech are picking up swiftly. We’ve seen a lot of inward investment into Romania from the US, targeting Romanian tech companies.
American companies that have established a presence in Romania are doing so to benefit from the exceptional skills and capabilities of the Romanian people—we’re known for being extremely tech-savvy. Looking ahead, I think this will continue to grow. As Romania continues to prove its reliability within the strategic partnership between the US and EU partner countries, we can only expect further growth. Bearing in mind that, globally, the US is among the largest investors—by some measures the seventh-largest—we should see this trend continue.
BEATRICE DUMITRASCU – CEO Residential Division One United Properties
Residential real estate in Romania is growing every day. Simona made some great points. What we don’t have in the United States is awareness of “Romania” as a brand—yet it’s a country that’s evolving rapidly. In residential, as she said, we have a 6–10 year runway. Why? Because if you buy units under construction in Romania today, your investment has been growing by at least 20% per year, which is huge. Taxation in Romania is favorable.
We’ve had some struggles with VAT, elections, and so on. Nevertheless, to give you a sense of pricing—sorry, I think in square meters—the average price today is about €1,750 per square meter, which is a relatively small amount if you’re buying an apartment for €150,000–€200,000, plus VAT. What’s important to know is that we have a shortage of at least 200,000 residential units in Bucharest alone. Also, in Romania, about 95% of people are owner-occupiers, which means the stock is very old—much of it was built before 1989.
We need to upgrade that stock, and we also have to consider that a true rental market barely existed until recently—it’s only started to grow. Over the last three years, the short-term rental segment has also expanded. We also had a period when the city was effectively “blocked,” with few new developments, which pushed prices up.
As for us, I represent One United Properties, the leading real estate developer today. We do residential and hospitality; we also rehabilitate historic buildings in a beautiful city with a lot of history.
We build office buildings as well, and we’re opening the first Mondrian Hotel right now. It’s important to note that prices have increased roughly threefold in the last five years, and Romania is still at least 15 years behind Poland. This means the country has significant room to grow for residential investment. Residential is the easiest entry point—you don’t need deep specialization. Just look at what’s happened over the last 5–10 years and you’ll see the trend.
As a company, we’re delivering 2,500 units today; we have almost 4,000 under construction, and fewer than 950 units available for sale. That shows how strong demand is and how limited supply remains.
And to return to Simona—she’s a real estate agent here, she knows this market, and she visited Romania and saw firsthand what’s happening. I trust her view that it’s a very good market. I could talk about this for 10 hours.
AARON N. BLOCK – Co-Founder and Managing Partner MetaProp
I’ve been lucky to be tucked into the tech world—slightly away from traditional real estate. Everything we invest in is real-estate-related technology, and tech is booming here, despite headlines about AI “taking jobs.” How many of you use AI—tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, maybe Claude or Copilot? Everyone’s familiar, right? If we’d asked that question a year ago, I bet only half as many hands would’ve gone up; two years ago, just a few.
You’re seeing a real renaissance in the tech community. Tech NYC is bigger than ever. The Romanian tech scene is very attractive—we’re opening an office this July to cover EMEA startups, and Romania is one of the markets we know. We have friends who own property there—not as well-known developers as you—but it seems like an incredible opportunity for people at the cutting edge of AI transformation in places like New York to transfer knowledge and create new startups targeting emerging markets like Romania. I also spent a lot of time in the Middle East—lived there for four years, helped build a business, and closed many real-estate deals. I sense a similar opportunity in Romania, following what we’re seeing in New York and Silicon Valley. I’m very bullish on residential—and especially on growth industries. One of them right now happens to be Tesla.
Q: How would you characterize the Central and Eastern European real-estate market to your fellow American investors?
We talk about Romania every day in my world. I haven’t had the chance to invest yet, unfortunately. Every year I serve on the jury for the Midland Awards—the global awards—and from time to time Romanian projects come up for evaluation. I’ll vote for yours, I promise. Pinky swear. The Romanian market is lively and has weathered its share of challenges over the years. And the US is not without challenges either. Yesterday I tried to walk back to the office from a meeting on the pier, down Sixth Avenue past 1211—broker habits die hard—and got stuck in a massive protest. We have our own issues, on many levels, along with plenty of opportunities
Romania is in the conversation because of tech. We see the projects; we know Romania has solid infrastructure and universities, plus a strong track record of global tech companies hiring offshore talent there. That bodes well for the long term. I’d love to make an investment in Romania—I just haven’t seen the right one yet. Please send us anything that’s tech-enabled or focused on AI-driven “agentification” in real estate, construction, or development. We’d love to look at it, because Romania is one of the few countries that seems to have the right recipe for success right now. So please send us your best proptech and construction deals.
CRAIG NASSI – CEO BCN Development
Given what she ( Beatrice) shared and all the facts, I think any of us listening are saying, “Wow, that’s incredible.” The growth prospects are phenomenal. It’s a small, homogeneous, friendly, well-regarded country—so it checks all the boxes for safety and positioning. The growth she’s describing is striking. If I compare it to New York, we’re seeing similar dynamics in the rental market—more than in the purchase market. A lot of people simply can’t find a place to rent in good neighborhoods right now.
The free-market rental supply across the city feels very tight. That’s probably tied to mortgage rates—people are waiting to buy. In New York, many see renting as an equal or even better option than ownership; plenty of my friends in their 20s, 30s, and 40s feel that way. As for our latest investments, we’re focused on new free-market opportunities in the city—higher-end deals that could be either condos or rentals. The numbers work in both cases.
BOB KNAKAL – Chairman & CEO BKREA
What lets us surpass other emerging markets? I sell investment properties here in New York and have sold buildings to investors from 72 different countries. It’s a very international market. But the investment profile in New York has changed dramatically over the past six or seven years, mainly because most of our buildings are apartment buildings—and that market has been transformed. Our policymakers decided the solution to the housing crisis was to confiscate control and limit what owners can do with their buildings rather than build new ones. That’s a big mistake. The result has been to drive typical multifamily investors out of the New York market.
If we’d had this conversation in 2018, I would have told you that all my clients who buy apartment buildings would only buy in New York and nowhere else—and they’d done that for decades. Today, 85% to 90% of those same people wouldn’t buy an apartment building in New York regardless of the price. They’re buying elsewhere in the country. That started in 2018, when politicians began talking about the changes they intended to make—changes they implemented in 2019. Historically, cap rates for New York apartment buildings were 150–200 basis points lower than elsewhere.
When New York capital left and started buying in Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Arizona, cap rates around the country fell while New York’s rose—so much so that during the pandemic in 2020, the relationship flipped: cap rates were lower outside New York than in New York. Today, 10%–15% of multifamily investors are still buying here, doubling and tripling down—largely, I think, because they were late to diversify and feel they have no choice but to stay all-in and hope for dramatic change. Meanwhile, there’s a new crop of investors.
Investors from places like Nashville—used to buying at a 7% or 8% cap and selling to New Yorkers at a 4% cap—have taken their gains and come to New York, buying at 5%–6% caps and believing they understand rent regulation. I don’t think many truly do. The investment sales market has always been cyclical—and so is investor behavior. It ebbs and flows. I think Greg’s on the right track focusing on rentals. The opportunity is clear: our politicians say they want New York to be more affordable, but almost everything they’ve done—except for the 467-m tax-benefit program—has made it less affordable.
Supply is restricted. There’s no new supply being added; in fact, supply is being taken out of the market. That’s why values in the rent-stabilized sector have plummeted by 50%–75%. By contrast, free-market apartments are at record levels: I don’t think there’s a new building in the city renting for less than $100 per square foot, and some are at $150. If I did the math correctly—converting euros to dollars and square meters to square feet—Romanian apartments are selling for about $150 per square foot. We pay $150 per square foot to rent in New York. It’s fascinating—and a treacherous time to invest here.
Unlike anything we’ve seen before, some sectors are doing very well and values are rising, while others are performing poorly and declining. You can’t paint the market with a broad brush; you have to analyze by sector. These are very challenging times.
KENT M. SWIG – President Swig Equities, LLC
New York’s resiliency is extensive—and strong overall. If I had to pick the most resilient sector over the long term, it’s residential. On the ultra–high end, the commercial market is very strong right now; vacancy on true AAA product is around 7.6%. But for durable strength over time, residential leads—and a big reason is simple supply and demand. We have about 8.3 million people in New York City and roughly 3.1 million housing units. Of those, about 1.4 million are rentals, and the balance is for sale. Citywide there are about 278,000 condos and 376,000 co-ops.
There are also roughly 1.1 million one- to three-family homes available to buy. With only 278,000 condos—Manhattan has about 114,000—there just isn’t much product. As long as the population is stable or growing, supply will remain tight. So yes, residential looks very good. That said, cycles matter: homes in the $1–3 million range are seeing softer transaction volumes due to higher interest rates. That pushes more people into the rental market—they may lack the down payment or can’t sustain today’s borrowing costs. Overall, though, residential remains a very strong area.
To Bob’s point, we desperately need to build more affordable housing. The concept is simple: incentives work better than punishment. If you constantly threaten your kids with punishment, you won’t get far; if you reward them for doing the right thing, you get better results. It’s the same with developers. I’d look at our widest corridors—take Queens Boulevard, for example, which is relatively low-density today.
Rezone it to allow a 15:1 to 20:1 FAR (floor area ratio). No one is forced to build, but if you opt in, require that 50% of what you build is affordable housing. You’ll see a lot of development. The city may not have cash, but it does have an asset: “air rights.” Treat that air like a bank.
Monetize air rights for the development community at suitable, wide boulevards that can handle growth. It costs the city nothing, creates value out of thin air, and transfers that value to builders—with a clear guideline that 50% must be affordable. Incentivize, and development follows. Otherwise, we risk a city bifurcated between the very rich and the very poor, with little in between. Arguably, we’re already partway there.