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Novinite
Good news if it to be believed??


Bulgarian Residential Property Prices Stable

Residential property prices in Bulgaria have stabilized around the level from last year, while the volume of transactions has begun to increase.

According to the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), the market is driven by buyers who spend between EUR 45 000 and EUR 65 000 for property, real estate agents said.

Russians are the main players on the Bulgarian property market, BNR informed.

Last year, real estate prices dropped by 25-30% and these are the levels around which the market will stabilize in 2011.

Real estate agents have stated that the crisis n the sector remains, but there is a limited supply of the most demanded apartments of two and three rooms. They are offered at a price between EUR 45-65 000, which is as much as Russians pay for a second residence at the Bulgarian Black Sea coast.

Bulgaria still ranks first in Russia in terms of countries which attract the most buyers in the middle segment.

However, there is a growing interest towards Bulgarian holiday homes from Greece, Turkey and Macedonia, and potentially from Poland.

[size=55:21q21iqa]novinite

Bulgaria Properties 13th Most Attractive to British Buyers

Bulgaria has made it to the thirteenth spot in a new ranking of property markets, which remain popular for foreign mortgages among Britons.

The Bulgarian market has attracted 1.3% of the searches for properties abroad at the site of Right-move Overseas in January, while their number increased by 40,5% over December.

Britons continue to be attracted most by the idea of taking out a foreign mortgage for a property in Spain, the ranking shows.

Australia, New Zealand and Canada have recorded the highest increases in the searches for properties on the site, up by a whopping 114%, 91% and 80%.

"
We're still seeing healthy traffic and interest for quality properties, particularly in more authentic areas;
smaller towns, inland locations and less resort style apartments,"
Robin Wilson, head of overseas at Right-move, said.

Owning a second home abroad was once the preserve of the super-wealthy, but in the past decade a heady combination of TV property shows and cheap mortgages has convinced an estimated half a million Britons to buy their own place in the sun.

The value of UK-owned foreign property investments peaked at GBP 58 B in 2008, up from GBP 10 B in 2000.

Recently however British owners of second homes overseas have been selling up due to falling rental income and weakness of sterling.

The number of Britons, who have put up their property in Bulgaria for sale, nearly doubled in 2009 over 2010, data of realtor Bulgarian Properties show.

BGTRAVELLER wrote:

On an average, property prices have fallen by a third from their highs in some locations prices are down by as much as 50%. Analysts expect prices to fall further in 2011, though prices in Sofia and other big cities are likely to stabilise and for Bulgaria as a whole. The luxury home sector has not suffered as much and is more impervious to short-term trends. Demand is beginning to improve in some coastal areas and more beach property deals were completed in 2010 than in 2009. In 2010, the holiday home segment performed better than in 2009 with more foreign buyers, especially Russians, buying properties along the coast.

Hi BGTRAVELLER,

Although Bansko is not especially my area, I do know prices there have fallen by up to 70%, but Bansko seems to be the worst hit place in Bulgaria. Sofia has stabilised and even gone up in price in some areas, but the capital is never typical of the rest of the country as evidenced by London. Russians are buying, but in a very polarised way - either very top-end luxury properties or the cheapest properties in villages. There is still hope for rises towards the end of 2011

The reality is that for some property sections at the moment there simply is no market at any price. Real estate agents realise this, which is why they don't bother to do much - they know it won't sell and they take it on solely to get volume onto their site. I know its in their interest to sell but if there isn't a market what can they do so I'm not so sure that the original report here is very accurate.

[size=55:150e744x]novnite

Residential Property Prices in Bulgaria Up by 200%

The prices for residential properties in Bulgaria have increased by an average of 200% in the last decade, according to analysis of real estate agency "
Bulgarian Properties"
, based on data from the National Statistics Institute (NSI) and the Registry Agency.

"
We witnessed one very dynamic decade for the real estate market in Bulgaria, which brought drastic increase of prices and volumes of deals. There was also a boom in the construction activity, followed by a sharp drop in the last two years,"
said Polina Stoykova, Operational Director of "
Bulgarian Properties"
.

She has explained that the company's analysis includes the last 10 years because "
the new century set the beginning of the contemporary real estate market in Bulgaria"
.

The data shows that in the period between 2000 and the middle of Q3 in 2008, the price of residential properties in the regional cities have continually gone up. After that period until the end of 2010, the company has registered a constant drop of prices.

The average growth of residential properties prices for the last 10 years is 201%. The cities of Silistra, Targovishte and Kardzhali saw the biggest increase by 330%, 310% and 309%, respectively.

However, these cities had a lower price basis in 2000 and they compensated with a bigger increase, in order to catch up with the prices in other cities in the country.

In Sofia the average growth of prices for the last 10 years was 171%, while in the Black Sea city of Varna it was 237%.

Since the peak of the residential property prices in Q3 of 2008 until the last quarter of 2010, the drop was an average of 33%.

In Sofia it was 36.6%, which means that the prices for apartments in the capital have gone back a little below their level from 2005.

According to the analysis, the first two years of the decade started with a zero increase of prices. The first two-digit growth on an annual basis was first registered in 2003 and it reaches its highest value in 2004 – 47%.

In 2005 the increase continues to be significant, but it slows down to 14.7% in the following year. In 2007 and 2008, there was an increase of 28% and 24%, respectively. The next two years register continuous drops – 22% in 2009 and 10% in 2010.

The volume of signed deals for residential properties have also registered a significant drop of 45% in 2010, compared to 2007, according to data from the Bulgarian Registry Agency.

In 2008, the drop is 5%, compares to the previous year, while in 2009 in was 37% and in 2010 it was 7%.

"
The data shows that volumes of signed deals react first to the market tendencies, and then they are followed by the prices,"
Stoykova said.

She said she expected the number of deals to increase in 2011, which would be the first sign that the sector is leaving the recession behind.

Construction permits are another thing that registered a decrease in 2010 by 56%, compared to their peak in 2007, according to the data from the National Statistics Institute (NSI).

Last year, the issued permits for construction of residential buildings were 4891, which is about 24% less than those issued in 2009. This number is almost twice smaller, compared to 2005.

The NSI data showed that the residential properties in Bulgaria have increased by 2.26% in the period 2004-2009. The properties in the cities went up by 3.94%, while the ones in villages decreased by 0.56%.

Am I reading this right? or are they really saying that property has increase in value by 200%? I don't know where this figure comes from but if anyone knows then please share it with us all.

davshaz wrote:

Am I reading this right? or are they really saying that property has increase in value by 200%? I don't know where this figure comes from but if anyone knows then please share it with us all.

Hi Davshaz - that increase is 2000 - 2008, since when it has fallen significantly, so we are now back to approx 2004/2005 levels.