Investing in property in Cluj: prices, neighbourhoods and precautions

Cluj-Napoca is the most expensive city in Romania: 2026 prices by neighbourhood, real rental yield, the cost of a mortgage and checks to make before buying.

The Remoters editorial team

Published on

30 August 2023

Updated on

6 October 2026

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Cluj-Napoca is the most expensive city in Romania in which to buy a home. According to the Storia portal, the average asking price for a one- to three-room apartment there reached €3,298 per square metre in July 2026, far ahead of Brașov (€2,342) and Bucharest (€2,160). Another analysis, published at the end of September by the VDI.ro portal, reaches the same conclusion: with a budget of €100,000, you can buy about 31 m² in Cluj-Napoca.

Prices are still rising, but at a calmer pace. Over a year, asking prices in Cluj rose 8% for new builds and 5% for older properties, and they were stable between June and July. Nationwide, home prices rose 12.1% over the year in the second quarter of 2026, according to European data from Eurostat reported by Economedia.

Before buying in Cluj, whether to live there or to rent out, you need to look closely at three things: the real price by neighbourhood, the rental yield and the cost of a mortgage. This guide covers each of them.

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What an apartment costs in Cluj-Napoca

In July 2026, Storia recorded an average asking price of €3,340 per square metre for a new apartment and €3,286 for an older one. The gap between new and old therefore remains small in Cluj, which the VDI.ro analysis confirms, whereas it reaches nearly a third in other large cities according to the same portal.

Storia converts these prices into budgets, based on the minimum usable floor areas set out in Romanian housing law:

Studio (garsonieră): about €123,580 for a new build, €121,582 for an older property.
Two-room: about €173,680 for a new build, €170,872 for an older property.
Three-room: about €220,440 for a new build, €216,876 for an older property.

These are prices asked by sellers, not sale prices: negotiation can bring them down, especially for a property that stays online for a long time. They are understood to exclude purchase costs.

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Neighbourhoods and their prices

The gaps between neighbourhoods are smaller in Cluj than in Bucharest, but they are still real. According to Imobiliare.ro data for the second quarter of 2026, the most expensive areas are:

The ultra-centre: €4,022 per usable square metre on average. Everything is within walking distance, including shops, restaurants and cultural life.
Andrei Mureșanu: €3,614. An upscale residential neighbourhood, with villas and good-quality small buildings.
Borhanci (€3,478), Plopilor (€3,476) and Bună Ziua (€3,443). Bună Ziua, like Europa, mostly offers recent buildings, but a car is often needed there.

At the other end of the scale, the city's cheapest neighbourhoods, Dâmbul Rotund (€2,684) and Someșeni (€2,814), are still on a par with the best neighbourhoods of Timișoara. In between, Gheorgheni, well served and close to the Iulius shopping centre, Mărăști, with its large parks, and Mănăștur, a large working-class neighbourhood in the west, offer compromises between price, transport and neighbourhood life. Zorilor, south of the centre near the Botanical Garden, attracts those looking for quiet.

Buying to let: what yield to expect?

Rental demand is strong in Cluj, driven by the universities, including Babeș-Bolyai University, the largest in the country, and by technology companies. Rents are the highest in Romania: in July 2026, Storia recorded an average of €400 for a studio, €599 for a two-room apartment and €749 for a three-room apartment.

But purchase prices have risen faster than rents. For an older two-room apartment at €170,872 rented for €599 per month, the gross yield is around 4% a year, before charges, taxes and vacancy periods. VDI.ro's analysis reaches the same order of magnitude: it takes about 25 years of rent to repay the purchase price in Cluj-Napoca, compared with around ten years in Brăila. Buying in Cluj is therefore justified first as a place to live, or as a long-term investment, more than for a high yield.

The cost of credit

Down payment: for a mortgage in lei, banks ask for at least 15% down. In Cluj, borrowers who went through the Imobiliare.ro Finance network put down an average of 32% between January and May 2026, for an average loan of 584,045 lei, or €111,571, the highest of the major cities.
Rates: in early October 2026, the six-month ROBOR index, used for some variable-rate mortgages in lei, stood at 6.16%, and the IRCC index at 5.57%.
Exchange rate: prices are shown in euros but local loans are often repaid in lei. The euro hit a record of 5.3447 lei at the National Bank of Romania rate on 2 October 2026.

Credit has become the norm: in the first half of 2026, more than 57% of home sales in Romania came with a registered mortgage, according to an Ipotecare.ro analysis based on data from the National Cadastre Agency (ANCPI), while the number of homes sold fell by nearly 9% over a year.

Precautions before buying

Check the seller and the property: ask for a recent land register extract, issued by the ANCPI, to confirm the owner and spot any mortgages. In summer 2026, an outage of the ANCPI's IT system slowed transactions: allow some margin in your timeline.
Be wary of listings that look too good: never pay an advance to a seller or an intermediary you have not met, and do not agree to pay a commission before any service has been provided.
View the property in person, or have someone you trust view it, and check the condition of the building, the heating and the co-ownership charges.
Have the contracts reviewed, which are drawn up in Romanian, by an independent lawyer or notary, and have them translated if needed.
Fix the currency of the price and the payment in the preliminary contract, to avoid nasty exchange-rate surprises.

If you are preparing your purchase from France, a Remoters home finder based in Cluj-Napoca can search for you according to your criteria, view properties, tell you what needs to be checked and support you through to signing. The first conversation and the quote are free.