Archive for October, 2006
Tuesday, October 31st, 2006
Nearly 200 Million Euro to be Invested in Golf Course near Pomorie
A golf course will be built at the total cost of 195 million euro near the resort town of Pomorie, Bulgarian southern Black Sea coast. Today Kabland OOD will receive the first class investor certificate for its project Black Sea Golf & Country Club. This is the largest scale investment project in Bulgaria, the golf course is planned to lie on 191.8 ha in the vicinities of Kableshkovo town, near Pomorie. The complex will create jobs for 800 up to 1000 people.
Standart Daily
Thursday, October 26th, 2006
Property price increase highest in Varna and Bourgas
Property prices in Bulgaria increased over the summer, data of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) shows. The increase was highest in the coastal cities of Bourgas and Varna. The price increase in Sofia was gradual, mediapool.bg reported.
Real estate sales in Bansko winter resort increased the overall price of property in the Blagoevgrad region by 12.4 per cent, the NSI report said. Apartment purchase in Pamporovo resort hiked the cost of property in the Smolyan region by 12.2 per cent.
Price increase in the Blagoevgrad region resulted only because of the deals in Bansko. For the period from April to July the price of real estate in the region went down by 2.1 per cent and the overall increase registered was significant, mediapool.bg reported.
Agents lacked an explanation for the price increase in Bourgas. It could have resulted from the several expensive deals concluded recently, agents said.
Varna’s price increase reached 6.4 per cent. Property there was slightly more expensive than the one in Sofia, mediapool.bg reported.
SofiaEcho
Monday, October 23rd, 2006
Bulgaria investment authority bets big on golf
The combined tab of the golf projects in various stages of development across Bulgaria is around 700 mln levs, said the InvestBulgaria Agency, the local investment promotion authority. Golf tourism is now considered a priority for InvestBulgaria which has put together a task force to review local legislation and come up with changes to bolster golf investment.
Invest Bulgaria is expected over the next two weeks to hand a First Class Investor certificate to the Cabland Golf Complex near Pomorie, on the Black Sea. The 370 mln lev project is the third local golf development to earn a First Class certificate after the golf course project of Spain’s Ferry Group and Golf Club Ibar.
Ferry Group plans to invest 260 mln levs in the construction of a golf complex near the village of Katina, in the Novi Iskar region.
Golf Club Ibar, located in the town of Dolna Banya, in the Kostenets municipality, will absorb 75 mln levs.
Currently local golfers have a choice between 3 completed courses. Another 30 are on the drawing board. They form 3 clusters: along the Black Sea coast with sites in Kavarna, Pomorie, Primorsko and Balchik; in the local ski resorts like Bansko and Razlog; and near the capital Sofia.
Dnevnik Daily
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006
Bulgaria Is the 9th Most Attractive Place to Invest
Bulgaria is the ninth most attractive place in the world to invest in. The country is ranked fourth in the Southeast Europe as regards the attracted direct foreign investments, after Russia, Ukraine and Romania. These data are taken from the World Report on Investments, presented by Neil Buhne, UN Resident coordinator for Bulgaria, and Ivo Prokopiev, Chairman of the Confederation of the Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria.
Statistical data of the Bulgarian Agency for Investments show that the investments in the country for the first six months of the year total US $1.72 billion. By the end of the year, the foreign investments in Bulgaria are expected to gross last year’s amount of US $2.8 billion. The foreign investments in 2007 are expected to be at least US $3.5 billion.
Standart Daily
Sunday, October 15th, 2006
Golf Resorts In Bulgaria Attract Investors And Property Buyers
Golf is a favorite game for many people in Europe and this is proved by the fact that only in Scotland, Spain and France there are over 500 golf courses each. Comparing this data with the situation in Bulgaria, we can indicate the availability of only three fully completed and going golf courses. The first golf club opens in 2002, located in Itiman, 40 km. from Sofia. Under the aegis of the Bulgarian Golf Federation the second golf course opens doors in the town of Sliven which is the largest one for now in Bulgaria and the third one is situated close to the small town of Elin Pelin. Golf projects have been worked out in Balchik, Kavarna ,Sunny Beach, Bourgas, Dolna Banya and Razlog and soon they will count many in our country. The perspectives in developing golf make the so called golf resorts more popular for the contractors in Bulgaria. The idea is to search for a combination between the game and the holiday in traditional (summer and winter) tourist destinations. This inevitably leads to price rise of properties, located in proximity to the golf courses and attracts solvent buyers. According to specialists, golf players are more willing to waste money than the rest of the tourists.
The availability of golf courses makes the region attractive for other investors too, which on the other hand reflects the prices of the land.
In the area of Razlog, where one of the new biggest golf courses is being built up, the owners of agricultural land (ninth category) are selling the square meter for 30-50 EUR.
The Northern Black sea coast is the other big golf zone in Bulgaria. The three big golf courses projects direct the contractors’ activity in the area around Balchik and Kavarna, where are projected or built numerous apartment complexes .Most of them are advertised for their vicinity to the future golf courses and the yacht equipment. It is stake also on attractions like rock-concerts in Kavarna, the nature reserves to the north, as well as local places of interest like the castle of the Romanian princess and the Botanic garden in Balchik.
Golf is one of the most developing sports in the world .It is sport for all ages and despite game, it is a way of life. Although in Bulgaria there are no traditions in this sport, the developing of the golf complexes and this type of tourism is forthcoming from now on.
Sunday, October 1st, 2006
Bulgaria business property transactions top 0.5 bln euro in ‘06
Over 1.5 bln euro will be invested in the development of business properties in Bulgaria in the next 1-2 years. The top deals for 2006 were the transaction involving office property Business Park Sofia and 3 shopping malls, 2 in Sofia and one in Veliko Tarnovo.
Specialists estimate that the value of transacted business properties - offices, warehouses, production sites, commercial centers, hotels, entertainment venues, holiday vacation villages and land, reached 570 mln euro in 2006 versus 215 mln euro a year earlier.
The spread of shopping mall developments will continue. There will also be an increase in lettings in commercial centers and mixed-used buildings where the ground floor is designated as retail space.
The demand for shopping malls is here to stay as a number of international store brands are yet to open shop in Bulgaria, said Petar Dudolenski, executive director of Mall Plovdiv. In his view, every Bulgarian city with 100,000-150,000 residents can do with a 20,000 sq m mall.
According to Petar Dikov, Sofia’s chief architect, the capital can accommodate a couple of more large shopping malls but there is certainly no room for all of the 10 or so mall projects in development.
The shopping malls that opened here in 2006 have dampened high street rents despite the sustained demand for prime store locations, shows a market survey.
High street rents fell by around 10% after the launch of Mall of Sofia, City Center Sofia and Sky City. According to the survey, rents on Vitosha street, Sofia’s top shopping destination, have declined from 130 euro/sq m in 2006 to 110 euro/sq m at the moment.
Demand on the office market in 2007 will be driven by a number of factors.
Following Bulgaria’s EU entry, a number of European institutions will post staff here and will need prime office accommodations. The country’s new position in Europe will also give international corporations that have so far held out the final push they need to start doing business in Bulgaria. Thirdly, the solid outlook for the local economy will allow native corporations to move out of the modified residential buildings they currently occupy and into lower-class purpose-built offices.
Property consultants expect the supply of warehousing space to increase sharply over the near-term. The trend will be fuelled by Bulgaria’s geographic location, the country’s EU entry and the near-shoring operations of West European corporations.
The current inventory of high quality contemporary industrial and flex facilities continues to grow and is currently estimated at 700,000 sq m, shows a market overview.
Data of the Bulgarian economy ministry shows that a total of 26 industrial zone projects are currently in development in various locations around the country.
The Rakovski, Kuklen and Maritsa industrial zones in the Plovdiv region are developing rapidly and have already welcomed corporate tenants like Liebherr, Socotab and Schneider Electric. The most notable clusters in the Sofia region, according to Colliers, are the area around the Sofia International Airport, Druzhba, Gorublyane, Krivina, Kazichene, Elin Pelin and Novi Han.
The yield levels of business properties will gradually decline until they reach parity with Central and Eastern Europe at around 6%, said market analysts.
At the moment, the different property segments in Bulgaria generate yields of between 8% and 10%. These rates are expected to come down by 1-2 percentage points within the next 2-3 years.
The anticipated yield decline is expected to draw to the Bulgarian market the larger property funds that pursue a longer-term lower-risk investment policy.
Dnevnik newspaper