LM Legal Services Blog

Despite the financial and economic crisis, the market of agricultural land will stay relatively active in 2009 but the prices will fall, according to the Bulgarian Deputy Agricultural Minister Svetla Bachvarova. In her annual analysis of the agricultural land market she said that there has been an increase of more than 21% of the market in comparison with 2007. The average price of the deals in the last year has been 312 levs per 1000 sq m, according to the System for Agricultural Market Information. This is an increase of almost 33% of the market values in comparison with 2008. The prediction for this year is that they will fall to 280-300 levs per 1000 sq m. The differences in the prices for the different regions of the country remain. The lowest prices are in the area of Lovech and Pernik, relatively 201 lv per 1000 sq m and 140 lv per 1000 sq m. The highest prices are in Dobrich – 546 levs per 1000 sq m.
In 2008 for the second consecutive year the highest number of purchases of land took place in the Northern Central area.
There is a decrease in the renting of agricultural land. This was due to the fact that in 2008 and 2007 a larger part of the tenants have signed long-term contracts for more than four years with the land owners.
The regulation of agricultural land has decreased in the last year by 20% in comparison with 2007. The reason is the decreased interest for investment in tourism.
In 2009 it is expected that the area of the land for growing agricultural production will stay the same and only the land used for growing wheat will increase by 10%.