A catastrophe in the real estate market can only be avoided with the introduction of national valuation standards. This opinion was expressed by the Director of the Society of Independent Appraisers of the Republic of Moldova (SEI RM), Dumitru Taraburca at a press conference held at the Infotag news agency on Tuesday.

According to him, the real estate market is “the foundation for the development of the domestic non-export sector of the economy, and its estimated value is the foundation of the Moldovan debt market”.

“At the end of May, the balance of loans in banks amounted to about 3 billion euros. With existing approaches to risk insurance, this means that real estate in banks is pledged for 6-7 billion euros. Based on the fact that the total real estate market in Moldova is estimated at 25 billion euros, it is obvious that more than a quarter has already been used as collateral”, he said.

Added to the problems is the “price bubble” that has formed in the market as a result of the pandemic, and “The general overregulation of the market, corruption and shadow schemes make it difficult to understand the ongoing processes, the possibility of meaningful forecasts for the development of the real estate market and its impact on the development of the country's economy”. He said.   

According to Taraburca, while the European standards were re-issued many times, market experts in Moldova “are trying to prove something to someone, using indexed data from the middle of the last century and fake market data, which, depending on the goals and objectives set by someone, for the same object can differ by several orders of magnitude”.

“Obviously, the market will change. Our primary task is to give a European face to the assessment profession. It is necessary that in the near future the real estate market will change from one more barrier into an internal source for the development of the country,” said Taraburca.