LM Legal Services Blog

Many construction projects in Bulgaria launched in the days of the property boom have been left unfinished. Some people look at this as an opportunity to destroy these semi-finished buildings in order to collect scrap which they later sell. The most striking case is in Blagoevgrad, not far from the ski resort of Bansko, where a Polish company could not complete the shopping mall which they started building on the site of the largest once dairy in the area. Three years ago the Polish investors paid 6 million Euros for the dairy. Now the only thing left from the unsuccessful construction project is shapeless concrete, as all iron bars have been sold for scrap. There is no sign of the investors and they had not paid their property tax, which hinted Kostadin Paskalev, the former mayor of Blagoevgrad to ask Interpol for help to find them.

Although in comparison with other Central and Eastern European capitals the property market in the Bulgarian capital Sofia is not so profitable at the moment, still in 2011 it has displayed signs of stabilization. In comparison to 2010, there was not much change in the demand and in the properties on offer. The situation in Sofia looked similar to the one in Budapest, Kiev, Bucharest, Zagreb and Ljubljana. However, the experts claim that this is the beginning of stabilization. The volume of the purchases in 2011 has increased steadily and at the same time there was a slight increase in the number of the properties for sale. The decrease of the selling price in the last year has not been so drastic as in 2009 and 2010. However, Sofia is far away from Warsaw and Ljubljana where the average prices were close to 90% of the prices during the property boom years.

According to the report of the Center for Economic Development the annual inflation in Bulgaria for 2011 was 2.8%. The predictions for 2012 are that the inflation will be between 2,5% and 3%. The unemployment for 2011 was on the average of 10,2% and for 2012 the expectations are that it will reach 10,5%. It is expected that in the fourth quarter of 2012 the Bulgarian GDP will reach its volume from the times before the recession.

The Bulgarian parliament passed the Bugdet 2012. According to the budget the growth of the Bulgarian economy in 2012 will be 2.9%. However, according to the National Statistics Institute the Bulgarian econcomy has slowed down in the last quarter of 2012. The Bulgarian GDP has not changed in the period July – September 2011 and has increased by 1.3% on an annual bassis. Usually the summer months are considered very good for the Bulgarian economy because of the expected income from tourism. The expectations were that slump of the European markets will affect Bulgarian economy in the autumn, however this has happened much earlier. The Bulgarian government is prepared to revise Budget 2012 in case that the situation gets worse.

The total  value of the properties owned by Bulgarian families was 140 billion levs (about 70 billion euros) in the end of 2009, while in the end of 2008 it was 176 billion levs (about 80 billion euros), according to Industry Watch. The drop is due to the devaluation of the properties during the recession and Industry Watch expect that this tendency will continue in the next six months.

The  devaluation of properties has slowed down in the last quarter of 2009 and it has reached 2% in the end of 2009 in comparison to the previous quarter. Because of this devaluation the purchase power of the middle class Bulgarian measured in square metres of living area has increased by 50% in 2009.

The financial resources of the Bulgarian families were 36 billion levs (18 billion euros) in total in the end of 2009 and this is an increase by 7% in comparison with 2008. The annual speed of the growth has slowed down, however, as in 2007 the growth was by 28.5% while in the last year it was just 8%. The amount of 36 billion levs does not include the debt and the credits of the Bulgarians. Last year the debt of the Bulgarians was 1/3 of their financial resources, now the level of debt has decreased according to Industry Watch.