{"id":5686,"date":"2010-12-01T10:05:06","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T08:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/en\/?p=5686"},"modified":"2014-03-12T16:39:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T14:39:14","slug":"never-let-reality-destroy-a-nice-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/2010\/12\/01\/never-let-reality-destroy-a-nice-story\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNever let reality destroy a nice story\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\">This article was published in the last edition for November of Insight Tarom magazine<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><strong>Romanian Real Estate market, winter 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\nAbout 10 years (and 10 kilos&#8230;) ago&#8230; I was invited in an important event, due to my business back then, in the media segment. I was by far the youngest there, as the average age was around 40 &#8211; 45 years, but I had no problem to adjust myself in the atmosphere&#8230; Watching around me, I could see many famous Greek journalists, discussing while eating or drinking from the buffet. Later on that night I joined a discussion, listening to a &#8220;guru&#8221; of Greek journalism discussing with a famous one from abroad, who had arrived for the event&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Probably after having drunk a bit more, the 2 famous journalists started discussing about &#8220;what people like to read&#8221; and &#8220;how people prefer to be informed about reality&#8221;. I still remember this discussion, but there was one phrase which was &#8220;stamped&#8221; into my mind&#8230; &#8220;Never let reality destroy a <!--more-->nice story&#8221; said the foreigner and he explained that in his opinion the public prefers a nice story with some questionable details, than a flat reality, with nothing spicy or exciting in it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>As 2010 is about to end soon, Romanian Real Estate market reminds me of this phrase&#8230; <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"unIndentedList\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li> <span class=\"list\">People appear to be &#8220;bored&#8221; of the crisis and they started &#8220;guessing&#8221; that investors will return soon, this is why some owners already tried to rise their prices in October!<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> Some guys confuse Romania with Poland or Slovakia and they assume that what happens there will soon happen here too.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> Some others presume that the preliminary interest of some investors and the few transactions (at very low prices) by some retailers are &#8220;clear signs that the market revives&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> Any news which is &#8220;not very bad&#8221; is considered good&#8230;<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> &#8220;Prima Casa III&#8221; is expected to boost the residential sales.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> Too many people prepare themselves for a better 2011, &#8220;as we exit the crisis&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>This story, with prices rising and investors returning, is a really nice one. But is it the reality we live in?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"unIndentedList\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li> <span class=\"list\">The political environment can not be described as &#8220;very stable&#8221;.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> The Romanian economy has plenty of problems and it will require new taxes and expenditure cuts, in order to remain &#8220;as IMF wants it to be&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> The banks in Romania can not be presented as &#8220;very open to lend money for Real Estate investments&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> The real economy will continue being into trouble, as there are no serious changes \/ reforms to boost the economic activity.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> The number of foreigners willing to invest into Romanian Real Estate market is limited and most of them search for top properties at unrealistically low prices.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> Rising the &#8220;ceiling&#8221; of &#8220;Prima Casa&#8221; project to 100.000 Euro does not mean that the people will run to buy properties which are considered &#8220;expensive&#8221; or &#8220;not appropriately located&#8221; or &#8220;not properly constructed&#8221;. Things will be better, but not drastically.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> Without new, &#8220;fresh&#8221; money in the market, neither salaries will rise, nor real progress will be achieved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">&#8220;Ok, you broke my heart again. So what should I do? Sit and wait?&#8221; a friend asked me, to whom I recently explained the above&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong>No, I strongly believe that this environment is suitable for actions:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"unIndentedList\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li> <span class=\"list\">If you find the right property at the right price, don&#8217;t hesitate to invest in it! It is sure that you will not find plenty of them&#8230;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> If you need to work on your property&#8217;s papers, this is the best moment to do so. Add value to it and be ready for better days.<\/li>\n<li class=\"list\"> If you need to restructure \/ improve \/ change \/ diversify, it is the moment to accomplish all your targets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Reality says that 2011 will be difficult. But whoever takes advantage of this period, will be ready for a (hopefully) better 2012 or 2013&#8230; Except if he prefers the nice current story of &#8220;problems solved &#8211; Real Estate market rises&#8221;, which will be crushed by the reality we will live during 2011.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">It is just a matter of choice after all&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article was published in the last edition for November of Insight Tarom magazine Romanian Real Estate market, winter 2010 About 10 years (and 10 kilos&#8230;) ago&#8230; I was invited in an important event, due to my business back then, in the media segment. I was by far the youngest there, as the average age [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[216],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5686"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iliaspapageorgiadis.ro\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}