LM Legal Services Blog

The price of agricultural land in Bulgaria has decreased by 40% in the first months of 2009 in comparison with 2008. The reason for this is the recession and the boosted prices of agricultural land in the beginning of 2008. This has put off many prospective buyers.

At the moment the average price is between 200 and 300 levs per 1000 sq m.
The top most expensive agricultural land is in north-east Bulgaria, in the area of Dobrudja, while the cheapest around Vidin in north-west Bulgaria, Haskovo in the south, Lovetch and Gabrovo in mid-Bulgaria and Pernik, close to Sofia.
Despite the price drop, the rent of agricultural land steadily increases. At the moment the average rent is between 18 and 20 levs per 1000 sq m, which is an increase of 10 levs in comparison with the same time last year.

From February the new information system of the cadastre and the Land Registry will start functioning which will allow information for the  properties to be checked on the internet. However, these checks can be carried out only for properties which are on land included in the cadastre map, i.e. about 12% of the territory of Bulgaria. The rest of the land in the country must be included in the new registry by 2005 according to the government’s strategy.

Checks for the properties not included in the cadastre map shall be carried out using the old procedure – by the municipal departments for agriculture when it concerns agricultural land and by the municipal administration when it concerns urban territories.

The completion of the cadastre maps is in fact transfer towards a real system of land registry which consists of detailed information about the type of the land, the borders of the plot and its area.

The assets of the property companies have increased in the first 6 months of this year. 26% of the assets is agricultural land, 20% are buildings and equipment and 17.7%  are off-plan properties. The number of these companies have increased to 68.

The sales of properties in Bulgaria have decreased for the first time in the last few years, according to the Land Registry. From January to June 2008 there have been 134 891 sales while for the same period of the last year their number was 136 457. The decrease is just by 1.1% but it is a fact. Since 2003 the number of the sales has been increasing by about 20% per annum and this has lead to a constant increase in the prices of properties. At the moment, the buyers are still active in Sofia, Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv and Pleven. The number of sales in these cities has increased, though insufficiently. However, in many regional centres like Shumen, Sliven, Smolyan, Pazardjik, Veliko Turnovo, Vidin, Vratsa and Gabrovo the sales have decreased, and in Ruse and Razgrad this decrease has exceeded 10%. Last year Ruse was the leader in the property price increase which reached 41% but the high prices have put off many prospective buyers.

On the Black Sea coast it seems that the buyers’ activity has moved south. The Land Registry in Nessebar which covers Sunny Beach, St. Vlas, and Ravda reported a decrease of 12.5% for the first half of this year. At the same time the sales in Tsarevo have increased by 50%.

The interest in agricultural land has not diminished at all, according to the activity of the most developed market of agricultural land in the country, which is in the area of Dobrich, Lom and Montana.

Despite this, Bulgaria is still in the first place in the world for the increase of property prices from June 2007 to June 2008. According to Knight Frank the prices of properties in Bulgaria have increased on average by 32.3%.

The export of Bulgarian agricultural goods has increased by 11% in 2006 in comparison with 2005 according to the report of the Bulgarian Agricultural Ministry. The value of the production has reached 7,1 billion levs.