Sat, Nov 07 2009
The increasingly intense construction of vacation villages in Bulgarian resorts led to stagnation of the house market in the region.
The coastal cities of Bourgas and Varna exhibit the most visible over-construction, investor.bg reported. The number of houses offered for sale in each of the two towns reached 1100.
Most potential buyers look for property located close to the beach, which limits the chances of some owners to sell their houses, agents said.
Sozopol is the town that features the highest number of offers in the region of Bourgas but it is also the town that has one of the highest prices. The average offer for a house there reached 900 euro per sq m.
Pomorie, Nessebar and Primorsko also feature among the towns with high supply of houses in the region.
The supply of houses near the areas of the most famous winter resorts is concentrated in Smolyan. Nearly 300 houses are offered for sale and the average price is 316 euro per sq m.
Office rent transactions peaked at 65 000 sq m between July and September 2008, but collapsed to 10 700 sq m in Q3 2009, Forton manager Sergei Koinov said.
Most potential buyers are now opting to buy a luxury flat in the range of 120 000 to 150 000 euro or a single family home for about 500 000 euro.
About 30 000 to 35 000 people employed in the construction sector were facing redundancies in 2010, Bulgaria's Regional Development Minister Rossen Plevneliev said on October 26.
Average market prices of housing in Bulgaria dropped five per cent in July-September, measured quarter-on-quarter, the National Statistical Institute said on October 23 2009.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has released a 43.5 million euro loan to Sofia Municipality, for infrastructure projects worth 88.1 million euro in total