Sun, Nov 08 2009
Lewis Charles Sofia Property Fund announced it would receive 1.89 million euro in gross proceeds from the sale of part of its project in Sofia, Thomson Financial said. Lewis Charles sold 10.3 per cent of the total build area of its project to an unnamed insurance fund, based in Athens, according to investor.bg.
Gross revenue from this disposal, the first made by the fund, would be 10.49 million euro, including development costs and profit share, Thomson Financial quoted the company as saying.
The transaction involved the sale of 61 apartments, 10 offices, six shops and a total of 31 underground garage in its project in the Krastova Vada boroughs, investor.bg said.
The deal represented an average price of 930 euro a sq m for the area sold.
The project was expected to be completed in December 2008 and return on investment was expected to be 24.3 per cent, investor.bg quoted a statement by the fund as saying.
The fund was expected to make further sales in the near future. The Lewis Charles portfolio includes project in Sofia, Govedartsi, Razlog, Plovdiv, Veliko Tarnovo and Dolna Banya and was estimated at 84 million euro.
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