ABSTRACT
To assess the functioning of urban land market, with regard to certain aims and criteria, it is important to approach the issue from different perspectives. The main difficulty lies in the fact that various authorities lack certain knowledge of the economic consequences of planning on land markets. Since there is no compensating fiscal treatment to land, land prices depend strongly on the local plan's prescriptions or eventual changes. Another failure stems from the growing inability of the land law system to cope with the different consequences of urban development. In 1991, the stabilization or even the first evidence of incipient decline of urban property prices in many parts of the country raises serious risks for overindebted real estate companies and other brokers and therefore also for financial institutions. As a consequence, the flow of credit may be squeezed, causing economic difficulties for some fragile companies, but this situation could also rectify the structure of the urban property market.
