February 6th, 2009 — 11:06am
Representatives of the Bulgarian Chamber of Construction have had a fruitless meeting with managers from the leading Bulgarian banks. The developers have informed the bankers that construction projects exceeding 2 billion levs have been stopped. According to information of the chamber in 2008 the number of the new planning permissions have decreased by 20%. The situation of the projects which have been already started but their developers do not have money to complete them is most alarming. Although there are many shopping malls and business centres among the projects put on hold, there are also apartment buildings where most or all apartments have been sold off-plan to buyers who took mortgages. The owners of such kind of properties are in dire straights as they can not use them - the buildings where the properties are situatied can not acquire permission to use (Protocol 16) in the foreseable future. Deadlines have been missed.
The response of the bank managers was that now banks can only rely on the personal savings and on the budget and ignored warnings that they might also suffer from the recession and told the developers to manage on their own.
Comment » | Bulgaria
September 18th, 2008 — 4:01pm
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.
Comment » | Bulgaria, Economy, Property
September 5th, 2008 — 2:42pm
About 90% of the buyers of holiday properties in Bulgaria at the moment are Russians. More than 80% of them are prepared to purchase off plan if an agency gives them recommendation. 60 % of the Russians pay on the spot in cash. There are two groups of Russians on the market in Bulgaria. Russians from the large cities came a year ago and started purchasing bigger apartments for themselves. This summer the second group of Russians from smaller towns like Novosibirsk and Saratov appeared. They took the niche of the Brits and they look for smaller and cheaper apartments.
The Bulgarians are still not a market factor. Richer Bulgarians prefer to buy properties in Greece. The property crisis will kill the speculators and will allow bigger players to take a bigger share of the market. Only the investors of long-term projects will profit. Currently, in order to complete a project successfully, the investors need to sell off plan at least 30-40% of the development.
Comment » | Bulgaria, Property