Hello everyone!
The Romanian land registry has been closed since July 14 following a cyber breach and does not allow registration of transactions or receipt of information. According to the Romanian authorities, the registry is due to return to operation during the coming week.
While in Israel we are witnessing stagnation in sales offices and a growing debate over apartment prices, with the public strongly expecting price cuts, contractors keep launching sales promotions (Prashkovsky is running the “apartment tender” right now) and still avoid significant price reductions, in Europe apartment prices keep rising, and we are meeting more and more Israelis who are examining and buying properties abroad.
This month we would like to draw your attention to:
A. Greece: real estate prices - the rise continues but the pace has been cut in half.
B. Romania: real estate investment plunges 46% in the first half, and then one deal turns the picture around.
C. Cyprus: a change in the VAT rules on new apartments.
D. Portugal: the pace of transactions is slowing, but the structural shortage continues to support prices.
E. USA: the residential real estate market - resilience despite high interest rates, with a few question marks beneath the surface.
Enjoy the read,
Adv. Ilan Leibovitch and the office team
Greece
The real estate reform of the Hatzidakis Law - what actually changes
Law 5293/2026 introduces a series of significant changes to Greek property law, most of which are already in effect. Below is what directly concerns property owners, buyers and sellers, with a clear distinction between what is already active and what is expected in the coming days and has not yet been officially approved.
For existing owners of property in Greece
The most substantive change concerns the state's historic ownership claims. Until now, the “non-prescription” of the state's rights (in force since 1915) prevented actual owners from being registered as legal owners against a state claim, even after decades of good-faith possession. An amendment clarified in the Ministry of Agriculture circular of 30.6.2026 (no. 177178) changes this: anyone who has held a property in good faith for at least 40 years before 19.3.2003 (including the period of possession by his predecessors), where the state has not carried out acts of possession since 23.2.1946, can now, for the first time in 111 years, win judicial recognition as the legal owner against the state. There is an additional specific provision for agricultural properties managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, including cases of temporary land allocation or agricultural division. This is relevant mainly to owners of long-held properties, rural ones, or ones received by inheritance without full formal registration - a situation more common than it seems, among foreign clients too who bought long-established properties.
In addition, owners with a property that was seized/attached because of a tax debt will soon be able to sell it: an amendment to Article 18 authorizes the tax authority (AADE) to allow the sale of attached properties, with a percentage of the proceeds (according to the size of the debt) collected directly by the notary and transferred to the authority. As of 12.7.2026 the administrative decision activating the article has not yet been published, but is expected “in the coming days,” which means it cannot yet be relied on in practice.
Finally, a general bureaucratic simplification already in effect: it is no longer necessary to present certificates yourself that already exist in state databases (this can be replaced by a written declaration); from 1.6.2026 every citizen receives a personal tracking code for every administrative procedure; and from 7.7.2026 every public authority must publish on its website its public reception hours and lawyers on an ongoing basis.
For buyers
Two changes directly affect a purchase transaction. First, the obligation to attach a topographic plan to a sale contract in areas mapped in the cadastre (Article 16) has been abolished, effective from the law's publication. Second, and dependent on the publication of a joint administrative decision that had not yet been issued as of 12.7.2026 but is expected soon: the notary will become a “One Stop Shop” (Article 15) that will digitally collect all the required certificates - cadastre data, tax and social security certificates, the building's digital identity - and will itself file the tax declarations and payments of fees. Especially important for buyers: if the parties agree on this explicitly, the notary will be able to receive the consideration in a dedicated escrow account, deduct the seller's debts from it and release encumbrances before transferring the balance - real protection against buying a property with a hidden debt. Until the decision is published, the regular procedure continues to apply.
For sellers
A seller who received the property by inheritance, gift or parental transfer and has not yet paid the inheritance/gift tax can now pay it at the time of the property's transfer itself, and not in advance (Article 17, in effect). A seller with a property attached because of a tax debt, as stated above, is expected to be able to sell soon, subject to publication of the administrative decision. And a seller whose property touches on a historic state ownership claim (see above) enjoys significantly greater legal certainty regarding the property's eligibility for sale - a point that is also important to convey to the potential buyer as part of due diligence.
Apartment prices in Greece: the rise continues, but the pace has been cut almost in half
The Spitogatos index, based on asking prices from millions of listings on Greece's largest real estate site, shows a clear picture for the second quarter of 2026: prices are still rising across Greece, but at a much slower pace than a year ago. The average asking price for an apartment rose 6.1% relative to the corresponding quarter, compared with a jump of exactly 9.7% a year ago. That is, the pace of increase was cut almost in half within a single year. Athens (Attica) rose 5.3% (compared with 9.4% a year ago), and Thessaloniki 7.7% (compared with 11.4%). In the rental market the slowdown is far more dramatic: a rise of only 1.3% nationwide, compared with 7.2% a year ago - almost a complete halt.
The gap between the most expensive and the cheapest areas in Greece remains huge, and even shows how fragmented the market is: the southern suburbs of Athens (4,231 euros per sq.m.) and the Cyclades (4,063 euros per sq.m.) at the top, versus Kastoria in northern Greece, only 585 euros per sq.m., less than an eighth of the price in the southern suburbs. Within Attica itself the gap is even sharper: Vouliagmeni leads with 7,364 euros per sq.m., almost five times the cheapest area, Varnavas, where a sq.m. stands at 1,407 euros.
And here is the figure that is truly surprising: the areas that jumped the most this year are not the familiar luxury ones, but rather ones that were until recently considered “budget.” Drosia, in the Athens suburbs, jumped 30.2% in a year, the sharpest jump in all of Attica. Spitogatos attributes this, among other things, to a rise in the supply of garden apartments and new single-family homes with a high energy rating, which come at a higher price. Daphne (27%), Lykovrissi (25.6%) and Tavros (22.5%) are also on the same trend. In other words, the price rise is spreading to areas that until recently were the cheap alternative.
Greece's banking system is opening the mortgage tap. The average loan-to-value ratio (LTV) has risen, and banks are now willing to finance up to 90% of a property's value, a figure that partly explains why even in the “cheap” areas there is still demand pushing prices up.
It is important to remember that the Spitogatos index is based on asking prices, not actual transactions; the final price is usually lower. For comparison: the Bank of Greece, which measures by actual valuations, reported a rise of 5.7% in the first quarter of 2026 (the latest figure it published), slightly more conservative than Spitogatos, but in exactly the same direction.
Our media coverage
More than 85,000 apartments are sitting on the shelf and not selling. The contractors don't lower prices because the bank won't let them, and that is exactly why abolishing VAT could change the whole game.
Prices didn't fall 20% because the bank simply doesn't let the contractor lower them. So the contractor hands out gifts, upgrades specifications and offers 80/20 - everything except touching the sticker price. And the most amazing figure? The Central Bureau of Statistics removes finished, built apartments from the official count after a year and a quarter, which means 84,000 is a minimum, not a maximum.
Since the start of 2025, more than a thousand general contractors in Israel have collapsed, the ones who actually build your apartment. And in urban renewal (pinui-binui) the situation is especially severe: the family has already vacated the old apartment, sometimes watched it being demolished, and now the contractor collapses in the middle of the project. Israeli law knows how to return money, but does not know how to return a home.
The Central Bureau of Statistics removes an apartment from the official count 15 months after construction ended, even if the contractor is still offering it for sale. Thousands of finished apartments ready for occupancy simply disappear, because their statistical validity has expired. And who does that suit? The contractor, whose reported inventory looks smaller. The bank that financed him, and anyone who prefers the housing market to look more balanced than it really is.
Romania
The national land registry collapsed - 3 weeks into the crisis, and what it teaches about risk management in cross-border transactions
On July 14, 2026, Romania became a rare test case: a whole country in which the real estate market came to a halt, almost literally, because of a single cyberattack. ANCPI, the National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration, the body that manages the Romanian land registry, turned out to be the victim of a ransomware attack that encrypted and wiped part of its virtualization infrastructure. The central system, e-Terra, through which every cadastral registration and registration of rights in real estate in Romania passes, collapsed entirely. From that moment: no land registry extracts, no registrations, no filing or handling of applications, and notaries cannot verify any real estate transaction, meaning the Romanian real estate market is blocked in theory and in practice. It is important to note: according to repeated official government statements, the central database with the ownership records themselves was not harmed; the incident hit the operational infrastructure, not the information.
The month that lost its footing
The recovery proved much more complex than initially estimated. The technical teams, together with the Special Telecommunications Service, the National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) and Cyberint, worked on a full restoration of the infrastructure while moving it to the government cloud. On July 30 the government announced that the restoration and migration were complete, but the system still had to go through a rigorous testing process. From then on, the same pattern repeated every few days: another round of tests was completed, a “limited number” of technical defects remained, and there is still no firm date. Three weeks of waiting, until last Friday.
The crisis that pushed legislation: a race against the August 1 clock
The paralysis almost exacted a direct financial price from apartment buyers. In Romania, August 1, 2026 was the date on which the reduced VAT of 9% on apartments rises to the full VAT of 21%. Anyone who had signed a preliminary commitment to buy an apartment and expected to complete the transaction by that date could not do so, because without e-Terra the notary cannot verify any transaction. In response, the Romanian parliament acted with unusual speed: the Senate council, followed by the Chamber of Deputies on 29.7.2026, approved a law extending the deadline for completing apartment purchases at reduced VAT to September 30, 2026, so that buyers affected by the failure would not bear an additional cost through no fault of their own. The conditions: a single apartment, usable area of up to 120 sq.m., total value of up to 600,000 lei.
August 8: light at the end of the tunnel
On the evening of Friday, 7.8.2026, ANCPI published its most significant announcement so far: the security, functionality and performance tests of e-Terra are “progressing well,” and according to the current estimate the system is expected to return to functioning during the coming week. This is the first time a concrete time frame, even a vague one, has been given, after three weeks of “no firm date.”
Alongside the announcement came two details critical to anyone with a pending transaction in Romania. First, ANCPI clarified that every application submitted during the shutdown, at the counter, by mail or by courier, was recorded with the exact date and time of receipt, and when the system returns, all these applications, as well as notarial documents signed during this period and not registered, will enter the electronic registry with binding preservation of their legal order of priority. No one “loses their place in line” because of the shutdown. Second, the validity of land registry extracts that were valid at the time of the incident was automatically extended by the number of days the system was unavailable, again to protect the priority rank of documents signed in this period. The return to operation will also be phased and coordinated with the national union of public notaries, to prevent a repeat collapse at the moment of opening.
What this means in practice
As of this writing, the Romanian real estate market is entering its fourth week of full paralysis. The signs of an imminent return are positive, but have not yet been finally confirmed, and the timetable throughout the affair has shown that estimates are repeatedly postponed. For clients with active transactions in Romania, two key messages: there is no need to panic about losing priority or document validity, as the authority has taken explicit steps to protect both; but it is worth preparing for a further delay in completing transactions, and verifying with the local notary exactly what the status of each specific file is the moment the system reopens.
The whole affair, beyond the immediate implications, recalls a point relevant to every international real estate transaction: the bureaucratic infrastructure behind every transaction, registry, notary, tax authority, is not just procedure. When it falls, it can stop an entire market, even if the money, the buyer and the seller are fully ready.
Real estate investment plunges 46% in the first half, and then one deal turns the picture around
The Marketbeat report of Cushman & Wakefield Echinox presents a number that at first looks like a warning sign: the volume of real estate investment in Romania in the first half of 2026 stood at only 211 million euros - a decline of 46% compared with the same period last year. The economic background does not help: the Romanian economy contracted by 0.3% in the second quarter, and inflation is around 10%.
But that number is no longer accurate. In early July one deal closed that changed the whole picture: AFI Europe bought six retail parks from MAS Real Estate for 282 million euros - the second-largest deal ever recorded in the Romanian real estate market. With this deal and a few smaller ones, the investment volume of the first seven months already exceeded the volume of the whole of 2025.
It is also interesting who is buying. Investors from Eastern Europe, including Romanian buyers, were the most active - 144 million euros, 68% of the volume. Turkish investors followed with 52 million euros. Two new names entered the market: the Turkish company Mondo Development, which bought the @EXPO office complex in northern Bucharest, and the Czech company Star Capital Finance, which became the new owner of the NEST retail parks.
The yields still tell a story of risk: 7% on the high street, 7.25% in offices and malls, 7.5% in industry - about 100 to 200 basis points above most Eastern European markets. This is exactly the gap that continues to attract investors who are willing to live with a bit more risk in return for a higher yield.
And what about apartments? The Cushman & Wakefield report deals only with institutional investment in commercial real estate, offices, retail and industry. It includes no data on the apartment market. The residential picture comes from an entirely different source - the Romanian central bank (BNR), in its financial stability report. The bank states a finding that sounds almost paradoxical: despite the continuing price rises, apartments in Romania are still “underpriced” relative to the economic fundamentals: household income, financing cost and rental prices. Housing prices rose 6.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with the same period, above the European average (5.5%), but below Hungary (21.2%), Bulgaria (14.5%) and the Czech Republic (8.5%). In real terms, with inflation that touched almost 10%, prices in fact fell 2.6%. An interesting affordability index: the time required to buy a two-room apartment without a mortgage fell from 8 to 7.9 years of income, but with big gaps between cities: 6.8 years in Bucharest versus 12 years in Constanța.
Cyprus
Cyprus changes the VAT rules on new apartments
On September 1, 2026 a substantive change in the VAT rules on properties takes effect in Cyprus. Two orders published on February 27, 2026 (102/2026 and 103/2026) amend the Fifth and Eighth Schedules of the VAT law.
What changed
Until now the criterion was time: the previous wording made a first sale within five years of the completion of construction subject to VAT, and further sales in that period, provided there was no actual use by an unrelated party for at least 24 months. This wording is replaced by the words “before first occupation.”
“First occupation” is defined as the first use of the building after its handover or construction, including the owner's residence, personal use, rental or any other use that continues on a systematic basis. “First use” is defined as a use or exploitation that continues systematically for at least 18 months. The result: any sale of a building and the land attached to it that takes place before it has been in systematic use for 18 months will be subject to VAT.
Who it applies to
This is the point where it is most important to be precise. The VAT liability applies to a seller acting as a taxable person, a developer, a contractor, a company trading in real estate. A private individual selling his own property outside a business framework is not a taxable person, and the transaction is entirely outside the scope of VAT; transfer fees apply in its place.
Therefore, if you bought from a private individual, this change does not directly concern you. If you bought from a developer or a company, it concerns you greatly. Note the exception: someone who regularly develops or splits properties may be considered as conducting an economic activity, even if he is an individual.
In practical terms, the seller collects the VAT and transfers it to the tax authority, but the buyer is the one who bears the cost.
At what rate
The rate is not a binary “5% or 19%,” but graduated and conditional. The reduced rate does not apply at all if the property's value exceeds 475,000 euros and/or the total built area exceeds 190 sq.m.; in that case 19% applies to the whole property. Within the framework: 5% applies to the first 130 sq.m. and up to a value of 350,000 euros; if the area is between 130 and 190 sq.m., the balance is at full VAT; if the value is between 350,000 and 475,000 euros, the balance is at full VAT.
In addition, the buyer must be an individual buying for personal residential use, the property must serve as a main, permanent residence in Cyprus (not a vacation home, not an investment property, not for rental), and the reduced rate must not have been applied in the past to the same property for another buyer.
A novelty in favor of buyers
In the past, any use of the property, however brief, could deprive it of eligibility for the reduced rate. Under the amended law, if the building is sold before reaching 18 months of systematic use, the reduced rate can still apply. That is, a property can be “new” and subject to VAT, and still qualify for 5% rather than 19%.
A numerical example
A main-residence apartment with a built area of 120 sq.m. at a price of 300,000 euros, completed in 2020 and never occupied, sold by a developer:
Before September 1 - exempt, because more than five years have passed since the end of construction.
After September 1 - subject to VAT, because there was no systematic use of more than 18 months. The area and value are within the framework, so 5% on the full amount: 15,000 euros.
It is important to qualify: in a transaction subject to VAT no transfer fees are paid at all, whereas in a transaction not subject to VAT the transfer fees are reduced by 50%. The net gap is smaller than the full VAT amount, and it must be calculated on the merits of each transaction.
What to do
The tax authority recommends that developers and sellers track precisely the date on which the building entered systematic use, and keep documentation, lease contracts, occupancy logs and utility bills, which may serve as evidence and prevent unexpected VAT liability. It recommends that buyers and investors verify whether the property is considered “new” under the new law, in order to plan the financial consequences in advance.
The buyer should clarify two things before signing: who the seller is in terms of his status for VAT purposes, and what the property's usage history is. These two, and not the age of the building, determine the exposure.
The 50 largest deals of the first half add up to 286 million euros
A new analysis by the Cypriot company Ask Wire examines the 50 largest real estate deals signed on the island between January and June 2026, with a cumulative value of 286.4 million euros. The 10 largest deals alone make up more than half of the amount - about 162 million euros. The largest single deal: 55 million euros, a building and adjacent fields in the Moni area of the Limassol district.
And here is the interesting part: these are not mainly deals for existing apartments or offices. According to Ask Wire's CEO, Pavlos Loizou, seven of the ten largest deals are purchases of land, fields and plots. In other words, the big money is not buying finished properties, it is buying the right to build. Loizou notes that these are plots in locations likely to be used for luxury residential projects and perhaps also for hospitality. At the same time, he speaks of growing demand for offices - a direct result of the international companies that continue to establish themselves in Cyprus.
Limassol dominates the picture: six of the ten largest deals, worth 117 million euros, and 51.7% of the total value of the 50 deals. Paphos is in second place with 24%.
And a point worth noting: eight of the ten largest deals were already carried out in the first quarter. Loizou himself links the slowdown in the second quarter to the uncertainty created by the conflict in the Middle East, a reminder that even a market that looks as stable as Cyprus responds to global events.
Portugal
The pace of transactions is slowing, but the structural shortage continues to support prices
Eurostat data published during July place Portugal in tenth place among 18 European Union countries in the rise in the number of housing transactions for 2025 - an increase of 10.5%. This is a clear slowdown compared with the 15.2% growth rate recorded in 2024, in which the Portuguese market recovered sharply after a 19.8% plunge in transactions in 2023, against the background of rising mortgage rates and high inflation. At the top of the European growth table are Slovenia (+29.9%), Lithuania (+22.8%) and Austria (+21.4%); a decline in the number of transactions was recorded in only three countries - Croatia, Bulgaria and Poland.
Alongside the slowdown in the pace of transactions, housing prices in Portugal continued to climb to a new high in the first quarter of 2026. An industry market analyst points to a picture that is not unambiguous: foreign buyers are reducing their presence, but local buyers continue to carry a considerable part of the activity; rent in Lisbon is stabilizing, and in Porto a slight decline was even recorded, while access to housing remains a central social challenge in the country. This picture, which combines record prices, a slowdown in transactions and a decline in foreign demand, illustrates a market that no longer behaves as a uniform bloc: the first-home market is different from the investment market, and Lisbon does not live the same reality as Porto or the Algarve.
The structural factor that continues to support prices despite the slowdown in transactions is a chronic shortage of supply: according to a report by a premium real estate marketing company active in the market, the pace of completion of new construction in Portugal stands at about 21 thousand housing units a year on average (2020-2024), compared with about 104 thousand a year in the early 2000s - a gap that continues to prevent a significant price correction even when the pace of transactions slows.
From the writer's desk:
A market in which the number of transactions slows but prices continue to rise is a market in which timing alone no longer guarantees a return - the specific choice of property, location and segment (first home versus investment, Lisbon versus the Algarve) is what decides. We recommend that clients considering entry into the Portuguese market in the coming months base their decision on local data specific to the area and the segment, and not on the general national price trend.
USA
The Fed doesn't move again
The Federal Reserve announced on July 29, at the end of the FOMC meeting, that it is leaving the base interest rate unchanged - in the range of 3.50%-3.75%. This is the fifth consecutive time that the rate has stayed in place. Ostensibly not news: stability is usually a good sign. But two details in this decision are worth special attention for anyone financing real estate in dollars.
First, the vote was not unanimous. Three regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents, from Cleveland, Minneapolis and Dallas, voted against the decision, and in fact supported raising the rate. Their reasoning: inflation has been above the 2% target for more than five years, and that is long enough to stop waiting for it to “correct itself.” This is not a marginal technical dispute, it is a statement that inside the Fed itself there are those who think interest rates are not yet high enough.
Second, and most important for anyone planning financing: the markets are currently pricing in not a rate cut but two increases of 0.25% during 2026. That is, anyone waiting for rates on loans in the USA to fall soon should update the forecast. Chair Kevin Warsh also chose to give fewer hints about the next direction, which leaves the market in greater fog than usual.
And here is a point that really doesn't fit this picture: precisely in such an interest rate environment, the commercial real estate financing market in the USA is not deterred. Lenders issued 26 billion dollars in commercial real estate collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) in the first half of 2026 alone, a pace that if continued would surpass the all-time record of 2021 (45.4 billion dollars). That is, the money isn't waiting for lower interest rates to move. It is simply learning to live with the current situation.
The practical conclusion: anyone building cash flow on the assumption that US interest rates will fall in the coming months should re-examine that assumption. The Fed's next meeting - September 15-16.
The residential real estate market: resilience despite high interest rates, with a few question marks beneath the surface
The second quarter of 2026 provided the American real estate market with a not-simple test: inflation that jumped to 4.2% in May (the highest in a long time), a Fed rate that stayed stuck at 3.50%-3.75%, and a 30-year mortgage rate that ranged around 6.4%-6.5% throughout the quarter. And yet, the market did not collapse, it simply slowed.
The price of the median US home (according to NAR, June 2026) reached an all-time high - 440,600 dollars, a rise of 1.8% in a year. It is not a dramatic rise, but it continues, and that in itself is surprising given the financing environment. The main reason: a continuing supply shortage, which continues to support prices even as demand cools.
Housing starts tell a split story. After May recorded a six-year low, June showed a jump of 19%, but almost all of it came from multi-family construction (513 thousand units). Single-family homes in fact continued to fall, 3.2% fewer than a year ago. Developers continue to offer incentives to buyers to cope with the high financing costs.
In the rental market, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment stands at about 1,930 dollars a month (Apartments.com, July 2026) - a moderate rise. The Build to Rent sector (private homes intended from the outset for rental) continues to attract institutional capital, on the assumption that demand for quality solutions will remain strong even if the pace of multi-family construction moderates.
And perhaps the most surprising story of the quarter is not housing, but hospitality. June 2026 was the strongest month for the industry since March 2023: occupancy rose to 69.6%, the average daily rate (ADR) jumped 6.7% to 173.76 dollars, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) rose 8.4% to 120.97 dollars - a significant boost from the football World Cup held in the USA in that period.
From the writer's desk:
The market is not a “bubble bursting,” but it is also certainly not in a state of “free run.” The supply shortage continues to support housing prices, but the gap between the performance of multi-family and single-family, and between housing and hospitality, hints that money today is going to specific areas and sectors, not to the whole market uniformly.
Accurate as of the issue date. Laws, tax rates and procedures change; check the current position before any decision.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית