Sun, Nov 08 2009
Real estate company Foros said it has signed up two franchisees, in Plovdiv and in Stara Zagora. The company is also in talks to set up Foros franchises in another 25 local town, including Blagoevgrad, Silistra, Vidin, Gabrovo, Haskovo, Kavarna, Sandanski, Elena and Sliven. The first of the signed contracts are for a period of five years.
The Foros franchise project was officially announced in April this year, but has been in the works since December 2007, programme director Milena Mihailova said. The programme targets urban areas where Foros has a market presence.
Currently, Foros does business in Sofia, Varna, Rousse, Plovdiv, Veliko Turnovo, Bourgas, Dobrich, Balchik, and the resorts of Slunchev Bryag (Sunny Beach) and Bansko. If the franchise program does well, Foros intends to take it international, seizing opportunities in neighboring Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.
Foros is the fifth company with a franchise program in Bulgaria. Address is the other Bulgarian real estate company with a similar program while the others are foreign outfits - Re/Max, ERA Real Estate and Century 21.
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