LM Legal Services Blog

In the last months the highest price of a property purchase in Sofia was 3000 Euros per sq m. This is half of the top prices paid for luxury properties two years ago.  The owners of expensive properties sell them now for two reasons – some experience financial difficulties, others think that with the money from the sale they will make a better investment.  According to the statistics the owners with financial difficulties are only 17% of the sellers and all of them are keen on dropping the price of their property.

Buyers ready to spend about 500 000 Euros are rare and they have a very good choice at the moment. The advertised prices of luxury properties are up to 200 000 Euros for apartments and about 600 000 Euros for houses in the affluent areas of Sofia. The actual purchases are carried out at much lower prices.  Buyers are prepared to pay between 120 000 and 150 000 Euros for a luxury apartment and about 500 000 Euros for a house. At the moment properties offered at prices exceeding 1 million Euros can not be sold as prospective buyers very rarely view them.

Only 12% of the buyers of luxury properties actually buy with the intention to make this property their home. 53% of them think that this is the right time to make a long term profitable investment. The rest have different reasons for buying like increasing the number of children in the family or achieving higher social standing.

According to estate agents the recession on the market of luxury properties came with a delay of about three months, possibly due to the optimism of the people with money. Then it crushed. The property market’s stability of the last months is less likely to cause price increase. This is not good news of owners of luxury properties as they expect to sell within a time limit. The reason for this is that more than 90% of the luxury properties are sold furnished and the furnishing loses its value in time thus affecting the price of the property.

The location of the property continues to be a key factor in the choice of property. The most popular affluent parts of Sofia are still the Doctors’ Garden, Lozenets, the luxury enclaves along Bulgaria Boulevard and the outskirts of Sofia in the south, right in the foot of Vitosha Mountain.

Analysts believe that once the recession is over, the luxury properties will increase in price faster than the other types of property.