Anyone can ask AI about Romania. Few can provide cultural context, weigh the right questions to ask, and make judgments where data is not enough. That's where we come in.
NOBS is a small family-run consulting firm. Whether you are renting medium or long term, buying land, building a house or setting up a small business in Romania, we provide research, due diligence, translation and consulting services, making sure you understand what you sign. Information we provide is always sourced and vetted by a human. Fixed rates, no commission from anyone, ever.
We can also be your boots on the ground: someone who goes to the location, performs visual inspection in the neighborhood context, rings the owner, and reads documentation in the original. Most information you need is in Romanian and the price often depends on who is asking.
Here is why we are not a conventional agency:
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We work only for the person paying us
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We do not list properties, we research and find them
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We do not work on commission and our fees are flat, agreed in advance
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Certified translation and interpretation are included at every step
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We can represent you before Romanian authorities under a power of attorney
We bring over 30 years of experience in technology, business and property management, as well as customer service to western standards. We are located in Transylvania, but we can provide services anywhere in Romania.
Buying Land and Property
An apartment in your favourite Transylvanian town, a cabin in the woods, a villa on the ridge, a small rural farm or a paradise at the edge of the forest. EU citizens can just buy it and move in. For non-EU citizens, buying land is more complicated, since they can only do so through a Romanian company, which we can help you set up.
Reality: The listing, land register and realities on the ground often disagree. A simple visit on premises is also not sufficient for proper due diligence. Real estate agents often represent both parties and create a conflict of interest.
What we do: We communicate with the owner or their agent on your behalf. We check the land registry against what is actually on the ground and against the person selling: ownership, boundaries, access, and anything sitting on the title that should not be. We read the urbanism plan for that plot of land, so you know what can actually be built there before you pay for it. We check utilities, neigborhood, risk zones and other constraints that only reveal themselves when a permit is refused. Then you get one document: what was verified, what could not be established, and the questions to put to your notary before you sign.
For more information see Buying Property in Romania.
Renting in Romania
A flat near a ski slope for a winter, an apartment in Brasov, Cluj or Sibiu, a house near the mountains for a season, somewhere to work from that is not a hotel room. Romania is cheap to live in if you pay Romanian prices.
Reality: The good inventory of rentals rarely reaches an English-language site. It moves through Romanian listings and local groups, and the owners do not answer in English and they are sometime reluctant to rent to foreigners. Booking platforms may rent you the same flat for two or three times what a local pays, and a listing tells you nothing about the heating, the neighbours or the landlord.
What we do: We search where the places actually are, in Romanian, including local groups that never appear in a search engine. We ring the owners and ask the things a listing does not answer: what the utilities really cost in February, whether the heating is central or on the flat, what the deposit is, who fixes what. We tell you what a local would pay for it. Then you get a shortlist of places that exist and are free on your dates, with what each one will actually cost you, what the contract will look like, and which ones we would avoid and why. You deal with the owner yourself, which is where you want to be.
For more information see Renting in Romania
Setting up a Business
A coffeshop, a small production line, a consultancy with two people and a Romanian address, or a company set up purely so a non-EU buyer can hold land and manage properties.
Reality: Setting up an SRL (limited liability company) takes days and doesn' cost much. Everything after that is where it gets expensive. The site with good access has no power capacity at the boundary. The local council is welcoming until you need a signature. The supplier with the professional website has three years of unfiled accounts and a case in progress. None of this is hidden, it is all in public registers, and all of it is in Romanian.
What we do: We compare locations on what actually decides it: utility capacity at the plot rather than at the end of the street, road access, labour available in the specific domain, local tax decisions, and whether the mayor's office answers the phone. We check the companies you are dealing with against ONRC, insolvency proceedings, the tax register, court records and filed accounts, and we tell you what is on the record and what is missing from it. We register the company itself when that is the route you need. And we go with you to the local autorities, the notary and the bank, so you know what was said rather than what you were told was said. If needed, we can vet and review local accountants and/or legal firms.
See Setting up a business in Romania for more information.
Existing AI research?
You asked a model about Romanian property law, or a supplier, or a market you do not know. You got an answer that reads well. You have no way to tell which parts of it are true. Let us check it for you.
Reality: Models are confident in exactly the same tone whether they are right or inventing. They merge two laws into one that does not exist, cite an article that was repealed, and produce a number that looks plausible and came from nowhere. They are weakest on the things that are not written down: how an office actually works, what a document leaves out, what changed last year in a language they saw little of. And they will agree with whatever you seemed to want.
What we do: A person goes through the claims one at a time and checks each against the source. You get it back marked: what is verified and where it came from, what is unsupported, what was invented, and what the model had no way of knowing. On Romanian material we add the part no model has, which is what the record does not say and what the office will actually tell you. Thirty years of running systems and three of using these tools daily, which is long enough to know where they fail rather than that they do.
For more information see How We Use Technology and AI
BEFORE YOU COMMIT
Send us your specific situation and we will send back the questions you need to ask, in order, with the ones that could stop the project at the top. We will tell you which ones public records can answer, which ones need someone to go and ask in person, and which ones need a specialist we are not. Not the answers. The questions.
The list of things you did not know to ask is the part nobody sells, and it is where the money goes. The question nobody thinks of can be more costly than a wrong answer.
Most people arrive having asked a model ten questions and got ten confident answers. The question list usually runs much higher, but only a few of them decide whether the thing is possible at all.
Take the list and work through it yourself, hand it to your lawyer, or send it back to us. All three are fine.
300 EUR, flat, credited for 3 hours of future services if you choose to work with us.
WHO PAYS US?
You do, and nobody else. No commission from an agent, a seller, a landlord, a builder, a notary, or anyone we point you towards. Nobody pays to be on your shortlist and nobody can. Our fees are flat, agreed before we start, and they do not move with the price of anything.
WHY CHOOSE NOBS?
We have over 30 years of experience working in technology for small and big companies, from the first versions of Windows and Linux to clouds and AI.
After owning 7 different homes in Romania and three US states, we sold our hospitality business in Montana and moved back to Romania to start anew. We are currently building a house and we own a small cabin in the Carpathians. We know first hand the difficulties of running a small business, renting and owning properties, all aspects of building a house, dealing with authorities, vetting contractors and making numbers work. We have lived in the big city, the suburbs and the country side.
We are here to help you avoid some of the mistakes we made.
Learn more here: About Us.