Real Estate and Bulgaria — Going Up, Going Up…..

Over the last several years Bulgaria has become a magnet for many real estate buyers, retirees, real estate investors and speculators. In 2006 my family and I visited Bulgaria and were surprised to find real estate agencies targeting specifically UK citizens for example — in the town of Bansko (Southwestern Bulgaria) there were a number of developers and agents promoting villas, apartments, etc. to buyers from the UK (and other Western European countries). This year, the situation is continuing to progress. Investors from the former Soviet Union republics, as well as Western Europe are driving prices up.
Some statistics (from mediapool.bg — published in the Bulgarian newspaper IMOTI):
Just in the last 3 months (April, May, June 2007) prices for apartments in Varna (on the Black Sea) have risen 3.9%
In Burgas (another big city on the Black Sea coast) — the increase is 4.1%
In Sofia — the increase is 3.8%
Average prices for apartments are:
Sofia — US$1152 / square meter
Varna — US$1196 / square meter
Plovdiv — US$771 / square meter
(These prices were calculated based on exchange rate of US$1 = 1.43 Bulgarian Leva)

Here I have listed the prices for the major cities in Bulgaria, but even the small and unknown cities like Haskovo, Stara Zagora, Gabrovo, Smolian, Silistra are exhibiting strong price increases — in the range of 6% - 8%. Of course those increases are from a much smaller base, but they show the impact of increasing demand and focus from multiple sources of investors.

If you just consider the new construction and list / advertised prices, the prices are even higher. I came across many offerings in the range of 580 Euro to over 1000 Euro per square meter (For reference 1 euro is 1.95 leva), so higher than the averages given by the statistics above. A studio apartment in the Vitosha suburb of Sofia with area of 46 square meters has a starting price of 33600 euro! That would be 730 euro per square meter ==> or about US$1000 per square meter ===> or US$100 per square foot! How about that…?!?!