Jessie Hewitson, The Observer

Back in 2006, Andrew and Pat Pryce decided to buy an investment property in Bulgaria. With retirement looming, they were hoping for rental income to supplement their pension, and a flat they could eventually sell on at a profit. When they read on the internet about the Mechi Chal mountain lodge in Pamporovo, advertised by overseas property agent Someplace Else as “the most exclusive in Bulgaria’s booming ski resorts” and offering a guaranteed rental yield of 7% a year for the first three years, they put down a deposit of £19,485.

It was a year later, in 2007, that they had the first inkling that something might be wrong. No one was asking them for more money, and there seemed to be no evidence that building was taking place. By 2008, they were so concerned with the lack of progress that they went to Bulgaria and drove around Pamporovo to investigate for themselves.

“We couldn’t see any sign of the development,” says Andrew. “On a second visit we attempted to locate the agency’s Bulgarian office in Plovdiv, but found it inhabited by another company.”

Having lost faith that the development would ever be built, the Pryces asked for their deposit to be returned. They say Someplace Else agreed to this more than a year ago but, despite being promised the money on three occasions, they have received only £2,000. They have now consulted a lawyer.

The Pryces are not alone. Since January 2008, the Association of International Property Professionals (AIPP) – a voluntary organisation with 376 members – has received 116 formal complaints from buyers unhappy about purchases abroad.

The number of people who have lost money in projects around the world is likely to be far higher than most realise, partly because nobody is keeping a record, and partly because those who have lost money are too embarrassed – and upset – to talk about it.

John Howell, senior partner in the International Law Partnership, specialising in overseas property purchases, estimates that 20% of those who have bought off-plan in the past two years are likely to run into “significant difficulty”. According to AIPP estimates, in 2007 193,600 of us bought property in the 10 countries most favoured by British buyers. This means more than 38,000 may be in hot water from just a single year’s overseas property purchases – and some may not even realise it yet.

The collapse of Churchill Properties Overseas alone meant about 340 investors, mainly British and Irish, lost deposits worth an estimated £4m. The company, which sold property in Estonia, Cape Verde and Goa, went into “voluntary liquidation” last summer.

Out of pocket

Another high-profile company, Bulgarian Dreams, closed at the end of 2008 and is currently being investigated by the City of London Police economic crime department. It is impossible to know exactly how many of its investors – who have bought in more than 40 developments in the eastern European country – have been left out of pocket.

Some of the estimated 100-150 investors who, like the Pryces, bought off-plan apartments in the Mechi Chal lodge, are leaving desperate posts on property forums and seeking legal action to get their money back.

Ben Mason, a partner of Someplace Else, says the delays have been caused by the local water authority rescinding permission it had previously granted. He is hoping to get it reinstated. “Providing this happens in the next two months, we can get the first phase finished by December this year and the second phase completed by December next year,” he says.

Mason admits the development is hard to find, but claims that the foundations are in place for phase one, many of the houses have been built off-site and when they do get water permission, the Bulgarian office will reopen.

As for the Pryces’ deposit, he says: “Due to the current economic climate, it has taken us longer than we expected to make this refund from the UK … however, there is no question of the Pryces not receiving the balance of their deposit, with interest, over the next few weeks.”

Howell notes that the developers in trouble are not typically local but British would-be Donald Trumps, and new to the game. “Many of these developers probably started off with good intentions but soon got in over their heads,” he says. “Whether it was fraud or bad economic times is a moot point, frankly, because the end result is the same: people lose money.”

Bad lands

Derek Smythe (not his real name) is more than aware of his predicament, and resigned to losing the £30,000 he invested in 2006 into a company that promised to buy land in Montenegro, get planning permission, build and sell on.

“Since investing the money, I’ve had virtually no communication from the directors [both British],” he says. “There’s no evidence that the money was used to purchase any land at all – I have absolutely no idea what happened to it. It’s been pretty miserable – and the worst thing is, it’s all my fault as I didn’t ask enough questions.”

The sums of money being lost are vast: Howell recently met 70 people, mainly Britons, who had sunk an average of €80,000 (£70,000) into a troubled development in Bulgaria.

He also has clients who regret buying in Dubai. “The problem is that all the major building companies belong to the royal family, and you won’t find a lawyer who will sue.”

The range of people losing money this way spans class, gender and age: young, old, working class, middle class, the gullible, the naive and the greedy are all suffering alike.

“I’ve got clients who are working-class people who invested the £20,000 equity they had in their home, and high-flying professionals who frankly ought to have known better,” says Howell, adding that one client who got stung was a partner in a chartered accountancy firm.

Many of these problems would not have happened if the investors had sought the advice of a good lawyer – something that many of the people interviewed for this article bitterly regret not doing.

Expat Properties Plc created for the purpose of buying land, is the first plc of this type in Bulgaria which has returned its license. The general shareholders meeting will take place on 8 June 2009 when it is expected that the shareholders of the company will take the formal decision for its liquidation. It is also expected that the shareholders will give a deadline of 6 months for the liquidation and will choose a receiver. The last deal of Expat Properties Plc was on 16 April 2008.

Companies in Sofia which offer office space for rent have a special offer of 3 to 12 rent free months. Tenants who sign a contract with them do not pay rent for some time as a bonus.

The reason for this is the collapse of the rental market of office space in the last few months. According to the statistics, 12% of the office space on offer in Sofia is empty. The average rent of good quality office space is 13-14 EUR per sq m.

The mortgage applications in Bulgaria have increased by 20% in April in comparison to March 2009. They are mostly young professionals who work for foreign companies and have good incomes. They would like to take advantage of the good prices and think that it is worth paying higher mortgage interest. Most of them have savings which can pay for 50% of the price of the property that they would like to buy and answer to the stringent requirements of the Bulgarian banks which do not lend higher than 50% mortgages.

In connection with this and with the decreasing property prices, the average amount of the mortgage in Bulgaria has fallen down to 35 236 EUR, levels typical for the summer of 2007.

The Bulgarian property market has entered into a constant slum and it is expected that the earliest in 2011 it will pick up, according to developers, analysts and estate agents.

This conclusion is based on the expectation for a deep recession in the country in the next two years. Prominent business analysts think that the recovery of the property market in Bulgaria entirely depends on the economic development of the country. The boom of the property market coincided with the economic boom. However, now the forecast of the IMF for Bulgaria is most worrying – recession in the next two years, high unemployment and shrinking of the spending. Traditionally, the economic process in Bulgaria lags behind the one in the developed Western countries. Only in case that Bulgaria starts using the European funds properly and more companies from Western Europe relocate in Bulgaria by 2010 the country will reach the lowest point of the economic recession and the economy will start moving upwards.

According to a prominent Bulgarian banker, the property market in Bulgaria has grown at a 45 degrees but later it has dropped like a stone at 90 degrees. According to him in this situation profit or much smaller loss suffer the developers who sell first. According to him in the times of recession for the developers is crucial to have their own capital. The highest risk for him is if the recession lasts longer than expected in which case even companies with rich reserves might see them draining. The investors in property projects in Bulgaria should focus on the Bulgarian buyer and should drop the prices to levels attractive for him. In this way the developers will get cash so much needed during the recession.

According to the prominent banker, the Bulgarian banker should not be accused for the problems in the property industry in the last months. The banks follow the success and in the last years in the property business there have been no losers. The profits have been huge both for the good and for the bad companies regardless of the quality. The positive effect from the recession will be that the profit margins will shrink.

402.6 million Euros is the total turnover from merging and acquisitions in the first three months of this year, which is a decrease of 18.2% or 72% less than in the first quarter of 2008. The recession has hit the merging and acquisitions in Bulgaria. Only 32 M&A have been completed in the first three months of this year. In the same period of last year there were 136 deals to the value of 3.5 billion Euros.

The decrease in the first three months of 2009 still can not give a clear idea about the market situation later during the year. The prices of companies have dramatically decreased and the number of deals has shrunk by 1/3 on annual basis. The analysts still think that the situation is not that bad. In March the number of the deals has increased which might be a sign of recovery at the end of 2009.

For the first time in four years there are clear signs that the interest towards holiday homes in Bulgaria has decreased. The major buyers on this market – the Irish and the English – have stopped buying. The estate agents now joke that the result of this crisis is exactly what the greens have been striving to achieve – there is no construction in the resorts whatsoever.

According to the analysts, the slump has come as a natural result of the wish of the developers to constantly increase the number of foreign buyers, taking advantage of the low prices. At the moment there are no buyers at all and many developers sell their properties well below their value. Those few developers who have free cash despite the recession do not want to invest in the overdeveloped Black Sea and mountain resorts. There the property prices have dropped so much that a studio costs as much as a new middle class car. Despite this, there are no buyers. The supply on the holiday property market is 80% higher than the demand. There are thousands of sellers and no buyers. There is no secondary market due to the low rental income.

40 000 Euros can buy you a furnished one bedroom apartment in Sunny Beach. Most buyers receive not only discounts but also fitted kitchens, furniture or at least laminated floor.

In Bansko the situation looks similar. A one bedroom apartment of 80 sq m, situated close to the gondola lift costs 38 000 Euros. Further away from the lift in the direction of the central parts of the town price fall and for 30 000 Euros investors can buy an apartment of 64 sq m. Completed furnished apartments sell for about 600 Euros per sq m.

Although the holiday homes market has reached new lows, the analysts believe that in long term there will be good prospects for its development. The recession itself has lead to to preservation of the nature and this will eventually attract new buyers and tourists. On the other hand the recession has brought new lower prices of materials and labour. Many companies which got involved in construction because of the high profits are now going bankrupt. The developers are becoming more careful and there are expectations that the new projects will be of much better quality and with better location.

Regardless of the fact that the British and Irish buyers have lost interest towards the Bulgarian market, the analysts expect that soon Russians, Poles and Scandinavians will start buying in great numbers in Bulgaria. However, they look for different products and it seems that what has been built for the British buyers will not satisfy them. The holiday apartment or house will be less important than the environment, the peace and quiet, and the services on offer.

The rent of industrial plots of land in Sofia have increased by 8% or by 0,5 Euros (1 lv) per sq m in 2008 in comparison with 2007. The average rent of industrial land in the country is 6.5 Euros per square metres. This is by 1 Euros more expensive than the neighbouring countries. The reason for this situation is that more and more companies have been looking for industrial land while there have not been many plots on offer.

This year the tendency outlined by the recession is owners first to find tenants and only then to start turning their land into an industrial one. Estate agents expect that the demand for industrial land will not be affected by the recession, as it is expected that more companies will relocate from Western into Eastern Europe.

The turnover of the largest Bulgarian construction companies in 2007 was 2.7 billion levs according to the Builders’ Chamber in Bulgaria (KSB) which announced the annual statistics on the eve of the day of the builders, St Dimitre’s Day. More than 2400 Bulgarian construction companies have provided information for these statistics.

The largest construction company in Bulgaria is Glavbolgarstroy AD with a turnover reaching 228.9 million levs. Roads Holding is in the second place with 151.7 million levs. It seems unlikely a company building roads to take the first place, as there are no infrastructure projects for the time being.

The growth of the construction industry according to its chamber demonstrated a growth of 16% per annum but this year there will be a slow down. This recession has been expressed in the halting of investment projects and of planning permissions. If the European funding has not been stopped, the construction industry would have maintained its growth.

The sales of properties have decreased twice in the first three months of 2009 in comparison with the same period in 2007. The main reason is the shrinking of the market. The investments in the property market are much less than in previous years.

In order to attract clients the construction companies now tend to building longer – up to 3 years. At the same time they  accept smaller instalments during the construction and a bigger final instalment when the project is ready. It is difficult to make predictions at the moment but for the time being there are no significant changes in the cities.

The collapse of the banks in the West is a serious warning for the future of Bulgarian banks. In the last three-four years, the Bulgarian banks enjoyed enormous profit and record growth levels but the world financial crisis is going to put an end to this.

Almost all Bulgarian banks have started to change their development policy following September, 14.  Almost all plans for the opening of new branches have been frozen. The major problem in the banking sector is the lack of fresh money. The foreign financing has stopped and now all Bulgarian banks have focused on the domestic market to keep their growth. It is expected that a within a year a real war to attract deposits of new clients will unleash and the perks for the clients will include holidays abroad and golden watches.

However the biggest loser will be the business and the ordinary consumer. Many banks have changed their policy to attract new clients and now focus on keep the reliable clients with a good track record. It will be very difficult to get a credit if you are a new company. The price of this will be high for the Bulgarian economy – so far the banks have been the major force of the economic growth.

The State
Bulgaria can repay its foreign debt according to the Bulgarian National Bank. The Bulgarian government has to pay 2,69 billion Euros to its foreign creditors. At the same time the fiscal reserve is 3,73 billion Euros. The foreign debt has decreased from 3,02 billion Euros to 2,69 billion Euros in March this year. The government has to repay the Euro bonds emitted in 2002, which amount to 1,6 billion Euros. The other debts are: 760 million Euros to the World Bank, 330 million Euros to the European Investment Bank and 17 million Euros to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Private Companies
The situation with the foreign debt of the Bulgarian private companies is different. In the end of April 2008 the debt was totaling 28.03 billion Euros – similar in size to the Bulgarian GDP for 2007. In four months this debt has increased by 2.97 billion Euros and the annual increase was 9.59 billion Euros. 10.7 billion Euros of this debt have been in the form of loans which foreign owners gave to their Bulgarian companies. These loans have been granted for the purchase of equipment and technologies, and subsequently, the official statistic considers them foreign investments. Unlike direct investments, these loans have to be repaid. It is not clear if these in-company loans have led to the accumulation of profit, sufficient enough for their repayment or the companies just sell their production and services for levs on the domestic market and then buy Euros to repay the loans.

The Banks
According to the Bulgarian National Bank, the foreign financing received by the Bulgarian banks by April 2008 has increase by 740 million Euros and has reached 6.49 billion Euros in total. The increase is the result of short-term deposits of foreign financial institutions at Bulgarian banks, rather than long-term credit lines.

The question is how long the country will be able to withstand the speedy increase of the foreign debts and whether this will lead to shrinking of the currency reserve.