The real estate market in Moldova continues to stagnate, according to experts. The old apartments are hardly sold, while the new ones are not in demand because they are large in area, Info-Prim Neo reports. ”The market earlier developed as the people invested money in apartments so that they could sell them later at higher prices. Now the situation is uncertain, even worse,” said Nicolae Ostafeiciuc, expert of the realty agency “Lara”. According to the expert, the one and two-room apartments are in greater demand. Their prices have fallen by 2-3% since the start of the year and vary between €25 000-30 000 for a one-room apartment and €32,000-40,000 for a two-room apartment. Even if the prices of larger apartments decreased by about 10%, these apartments are not in demand as they cost minimum €45,000. Nicolae Ostafeiciuc is convinced that the real estate market will decline slowly and there are now no signs that the situation will improve. The new apartments are either not sold. Pavel Caba, chairman of the Construction Employers Federation “Condrumat”, said the sales are very low. In summer, they fell by 60%-80% also due to the unstable political situation. “The situation is ambiguous. The people phone, but not many of them come to at least see the apartment,” said Pavel Caba. He voiced hope that the situation will remedy in autumn. The average price of a square meter of new apartment is €650-750, depending on the story and location of the house. Veaceslav Grosu, sales manager of a construction company, said that every company sets the selling prices according to the cost price and profit made. The price of new apartments cannot be decreased as the company will sustain losses. In the future, the construction companies plan to build apartments at most 60 square meters in area as the smaller apartments are in greater demand. In order to stimulate the recovery of the construction sector, the public authorities should facilitate the administrative procedures in construction and encourage loyal competition on the market, considers Adrian Lupusor, of the think tank Expert-Grup. “The development of mortgage products and stimulation of competition between banks on this segment of the market will help remedy the situation on the realty market,” said the expert. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 1 441 apartments of an area of 191,400 square meters had been put in commission in January-September last year, down 45% compared with the corresponding period of 2009. The state-run company Cadastru said 28,600 transactions to sell and buy real estate had been recorded by this April.