Advice when you need it most
Some analysts predict further 15% decrease of the property prices in Bulgaria. However, they do not expect prices to drop before the value.
The advise of the experts is to buy apartments now, while buyers of office and industrial space will have to wait for another 2-3 years for price to fall further down.
The number of purchases in the first three months of this year has fallen three times in comparison with the same period last year.
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.
Office and retail rents fall and will keep falling in the next two years according to Raiffeisen Property. In short term the office space on offer will outnumber the demand. The same tendency is valid for retail space, as only in the next 2.5 years it is expected that the retail space will increase eight times.
Meanwhile the interest of investors is expected to decrease due to the world crisis which has hit the property market. As result the secondary market will become rather active. Those who bought property as investment will rush to sell it. The demand will be focused mainly in the cities. The prices of high quality residential property will rise in expensive city areas.
In the mountain and sea resorts there are too many properties on offer. In the end of 2007 there were more than 80 000 newly built properties there, while currently there is demand for about 65% of them.