LM Legal Services Blog

According to the Land Registry, the property sales in the Bulgarian capital Sofia have increased for a second consecutive quarter reaching 3324 sales in the first three months of 2012. On the average in Sofia have been completed 37 sales per day – an annual decrease of 8.8%. The property prices in the capital have increased on the whole and now properties in Sofia are more expensive than properties in Varna, Bulgaria’s Black Sea capital, where for years property prices have been the highest in the country. The average price in Sofia is 1 453.30 levs (appr. 750.5 Euros)/square metre, while in Varna it is 1439.00 levs (appr. 740 Euros)/square metre. In third place are property prices in the second largest Bulgarian city on the Black Sea – Burgas – 1158.83 levs (appr.592 Euros)/ square metre.

According to the Bulgarian National Statistics Institute the number of the completed new buildings in Bulgaria (in the country the buildings must receive the so-called “Permission to Use – Act 16” to be considered completed) in the last quarter of 2011 has increased by 34.5% in comparison with the previous quarter, totaling 928. The number of the new apartments however has decreased by 8,1 %. Across the country the highest number of buildings and apartments has been completed in Varna (188 buildings and 815 apartments); Burgas with 127 buildings and 826 apartments is in the second place.
At the same time the average living area of the newly built apartments has increased by 11,4% in the last quarter of 2011 in comparison with the previous quarter. The highest increase was in Gabrovo, followed by Montana.

The number of new buildings in Bulgaria has dropped by 70% on an annual basis. In the last quarter of 2009 the number of the new planning permissions was 1343,  while in the same period of 2008 they were 2452, according to the National Statistics Institute.  This huge drop has come after 5 years of permanent increase of the number of planning permissions.

The recession in the construction industry  has also had its impact on the size of the new apartments – their living area has decreased by 24% only from October to December 2009 in comparison with the previous quarter. Annually the drop has been more drastic – it has exceeded 70%.

The construction of new offices has also suffered. In the last quarter of 2010 only 63 planning permissions have been issued, which is a drop by 25% in comparison with the previous quarter and 37% on an annual basis. Most of the already finished offices are left empty, despite the decrease of the rents.

The price drop of real estates in 2009 is on average by 20% but in some parts of the country it has reached 60%. The real prices at which purchases are made in the Bulgarian capital Sofia are on average 23%  lower in comparison with the period 2007 – 2008, i.e. the average price in 2009 was 980 Euros/ sq.m.

The price drop in the other cities has not been so drastic but property prices there have not reached the levels of those in the capital. In Varna, the second Bulgarian city, the price drop in 2009 was of 14%, while  in Plovdiv and Burgas (the third and the fourth largest cities) – 15%.

The prices of properties on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast have dropped by 15-30% while those of inland properties by almost 70%.

Newly built apartments sell for 390 Euros per sq m. In Sunny Beach there are completed apartments for sale for 20-30 000 Euros, which is below their value.

Properties in the big cities like Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas have dropped their prices by 30%.

Some analysts claim that the buyers now come mostly from Russia and the former Soviet republics and that there is no recession on the property market in Bulgaria but just restructuring. The quality properties keep their prices while the low quality ones sell at their real price which is a positive tendency, according to them. The Russians mostly buy luxury properties on the northern Black Sea coast at prices exceeding 250 000 Euros. The interest towards mountain resorts has decreased.

From the end of 2008 the number of new buildings in Bulgaria has decreased by 432 and the number of the apartments in them has decreased by 42.8%.

The greatest number of new apartments still are completed on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Only in Burgas district 1136 new apartments have been finished this winter. In second place is Varna district with 727 newly finished apartments, followed by Sofia with 580 and Plovdiv with 265. There are no new apartments in Stara Zagora and Kyustendil.

The area of the newly finished apartments in the first quarter of 2009 is 294 000 sq m which is a decrease by 16% in comparison with the same period of 2008. The size of the average living area has also diminished from 78.3 to 75.5 sq m in the same period.