Technological progress, the emergence and development of the IT industry, with all that this implies, allow young people of the new generation to be more and more mobile, with another kind of expectations when it comes to buying a home. This change in the behavior of the new generation can be best seen in the big cities of Romania, such as Bucharest, Cluj or Timișoara, in urban agglomerations with more than 300.000 inhabitants, which will rapidly evolve to 1 million. In such metropolis, besides the saying that the value of a property is given by location, location, location, an important role will be played by mobility. In the coming years it will be very important how quickly one can get from work to home or leisure places, because the new generation sets high value on spare time, available off-hours.
All big cities of Romania are almost suffocated due to the lack of vision of their administrators, city halls and local councils. I think that none of the important cities of Romania is having a long-term development strategy to improve life quality of its community. The lack of infrastructure and the time it has to spend in traffic are issues that will carry weight for the new generation that has completely different expectations concerning life quality and wants to take full advantage of the spare time.
Large urban agglomerations can have a rapid development if authorities will take into account the increasing need of mobility. Otherwise, young people that do not hold important assets will be able relocate in areas where infrastructure offers the possibility to move within quite a reasonable time. Urban areas where the representatives of the new generations will migrate, attracted by a better quality of life, will be advantaged compared to those where local authorities did not manage to solve the mobility issue. In order to solve this shortcoming, expert consultants must prepare an analysis and a strategic plan, so that mobility in large urban agglomeration will no longer be an acute problem, in the next 5-10 years.
New industries have people as main assets, and young people will live and pay taxes in big cities as long as the quality of life will be in line with their expectations. This is way, in the near future, besides the location and house quality, the value of a property will be more correlated to the time we spend when moving from one point of the city to another.
Adrian Crivii is the founder of Darian DRS SA and the coordinating partner of the management teams across all the divisions of Darian Group. He has also been a member of ANEVAR since 1993 and an honorary member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Adrian Crivii is a REV valuer (Recognised European Valuer) and graduated the Machinery and Equipment Valuation Course (ME 201-206) of the American Society of Appraisers.
