Archive for February, 2007
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007
Property Experts Gather to Promote Bulgaria in UK
In response to recent negative press and complaints from British investors, Sash Solutions, independent Bulgarian property consultancy, gathered together with like-minded companies to present a series of educational seminars. The lectures, which are to take place in the Birmingham city centre, in the property seminars are free for the public to attend.
The weekly seminars will cover many key principles and helpful lessons on making good investment decisions including: buying below market value, capital growth, and deal structure. As the target investment destination, Bulgaria will be presented in detail by a variety of speakers including independent mortgage and legal experts.
They will be addressing rare investment opportunities and show that Bulgaria is a truly fascinating country to be discovered. In addition to the lectures, guests will be invited to socialize and enjoy a glass of popular Bulgarian wine while receiving personalized advice from local Bulgarian property experts.
“When investing in Bulgaria you invest in the opportunity that this country offers,” Galina Mihaylova, managing director of Sash solutions, said.
Chris Dawnham, managing director of Bulgarian Home Loans, is also excited about Bulgaria and states that the true property market is still to be discovered, while economic development has thriving long term potential.
“Our goal is to give an accurate view of the market condition and to show why investing in Bulgarian property makes financial sense,” Mihaylova added.
The seminars aim to give a truly factual picture of the property market and present real-world figures.
Wednesday, February 21st, 2007
Thirty Thousand Subjects of the British Queen Live in Bulgaria
The official statistics for 2006 reads that some 30,000 British citizens have bought real estates in Bulgaria. The Englishmen prefer village houses at the seashore or in the mountains. The places where the Britons settle undergo a real revival.
The Britons are quite conservative and don’t like risks and surprises. It’s a well proved fact that countries where there are many British settlers, like Cyprus, Kenya and Spain, for example, enjoy political and economic stability. If they decide to leave a country this means that they distrust the political regime (Hong Kong, South Africa). After the USA, Canada, Australia and Spain, Bulgaria is one of the Englishmen’s preferred places to live in.
Standartnews Daily
Monday, February 19th, 2007
Bulgaria’s Ski Resorts Become Property Boom Towns
Bulgaria has been experiencing a large uplift in tourist numbers in recent years and the World Trade Organisation forecasts that by 2010 the number of annual visitors to the country will exceed 20 million. Ski resorts in Bulgaria, such as Bansko, Borovets and Pamporovo, have become some of Europe’s fastest growing resorts for winter holiday sports. Bansko, for instance, has seen the creation of a new motorway linking it to the airport, a golf course built alongside the town and a new ski lift system within the resort. All this regeneration has been attracting more and more tourists and to cater to this demand there has been an explosion of new properties in and around the resort. Existing properties in such areas have seen significant price increases.
Tourists visit Bansko because of the 65km of skiing on offer, as well as its picturesque setting and medieval village. Attractions such as these have ensured its popularity among tourists over the past couple of years in particular. The resulting growth in the buy-to-let sector has been boosting the property market of ski resorts like Bankso and encouraging more newly built properties in such areas. Investors have been quick to notice this trend and are looking to purchase while there are still bargains to be had.
BBC
Friday, February 16th, 2007
Property market heats up in Bulgarian resorts
For years they have been cheap and cheerful, but the next generation of Bulgarian resorts are among Europe’s finest.
What country is this? At its top ski resort, prospective property investors check in to the Hotel Kempinski, one of the world’s top brand names. The rooms are Wi-Fi equipped, and there’s a cigar lounge, vitamin bar and spa. Nearby, one of Britain’s most up-market estate agents, Savills, is selling apartments for more than £320,000 each.
In the same country’s most popular coastal area, Obzor on the Black Sea, exclusive interior-design company Yoo has created a spa resort. The 257 apartments are on sale through another top-end British estate agent, Knight Frank, for up to almost £200,000.
Is this Italy? The US? Maybe France? No - it’s Bulgaria. “We feel that Bulgaria is one of the most exciting new frontiers in the property market today,” says John Hitchcox, who, with the French design maestro Philippe Starck, launched Yoo in 1999.
“It took us a while to get into Bulgaria because there were transparency issues over who owned the land. But the country’s made significant leaps in this regard in the past year or two, and the market is ready for the sophisticated kind of product that Yoo is associated with,” says Dominic Hassell of Knight Frank, which is selling the apartments for upwards of £55,000.
British estate agents are at the forefront of transforming the hitherto flaky image of Bulgaria’s property market into a much stronger investment and lifestyle proposition.
“Due diligence - that’s proving the ownership of land and ensuring there are legal deeds when homes are sold - had been a weak point, but we’re introducing British standards,” insists Charles Weston-Baker, head of international sales at Savills.
His company is selling the most expensive new-build properties available in Bulgaria at the country’s premier ski resort, Bansko. St George’s Lodge is a five-star ski and summer leisure complex, with 149 apartmentsranging from £48,500 to £322,000.
The shift in Bulgaria’s reputation has come as a result of high expectations about the country’s accession to the EU last month.
“Our sales in the country quadrupled in 2006 from the previous year,” says Antony Aguado of Our Home Abroad, a British estate agency selling homes in Bulgaria.
“This was no surprise. Many countries over the years have shown dramatic increases upon EU accession,” he says.
Liam Bailey, Knight Frank’s head of residential research, describes Bulgaria as “one of the big winners” in capital appreciation since the millennium. He says: “Slowly you’ll see its properties and amenities going up-market. It’s a place to watch.”
THE INDEPENDENT
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
EU ACCESSION TURNS BULGARIA’S RESORTS INTO HOT PROPERTY AREAS
After Bulgaria’s EU accession the country became more than an attractive destination for holidaymakers.In addition it attracted an increasing number of foreigners keen on buying property, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported. Holiday homes worth from 400 to 2000 euro per sq m were ‘very attractive’ for foreign purchasers, DPA said.
Some apartments located near the beach or ski lifts reached prices unseen before Bulgaria’s EU accession on January 1 2007. The prices went up by nearly 30 per cent just in the year before the country’s EU entry. A number of foreigners had already purchased property in Bulgaria some years ago only to sell it and make profit, DPA said.
Others bought houses with gardens planning to settle in the country. Entire English villages, where all the houses are purchased by Britons, appeared in the mountains. Such houses costed nearly 50 000 euro. The situation was different for the average Bulgarian, who was unable to purchase property without taking credit, DPA said.
The number of property deals reached 280 000 in 2006, marking an increase of 15 per cent as compared to the figures for 2005. DPA reported that the real hit on Bulgaria’s property market was mall opening. Sofia saw two malls in one year. A dozen of shopping centres were to be built in 2007.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Thursday, February 15th, 2007
PROPERTY PRICE HIKE EXPECTED IN BULGARIA’S PLOVDIV, SLIVEN AND YAMBOL
A growth in the price of property is expected in Plovdiv, Sliven and Yambol in 2007.
The property market will fail registering record growth, Industry Watch representative Georgi Stoev said.
In the end of 2006 economists predicted growth rate in the prices of property varying between 10 and 15 per cent. Developments in the beginning of 2007 confirmed these predictions, Focus news agency reported.
Some Bulgarian cities registered steady growth in 2006 but the overall price increase remained within expectations, Stoev said. Major price hikes failed coming true, he said.
Similar developments are expected in 2007. Only some cities could register significant hikes, Stoev said.
Plovdiv features among the cities that are to see major growth. The same could happen in Sliven and Yambol, though the two towns were smaller, Stoev said.
SofiaEcho
Monday, February 12th, 2007
The Bulgarian Residences Are At The Thrid Place Of Rise In Europe
Bulgaria was at the third place of rise of residences in Europe in 2006 although the growth of their prices was vastly delayed comparing to the preceding 24 months. Poland and Denmark are before our country according to their place of prices of properties and Estonia is after Bulgaria according to the same criterion, shows a research of the most competent British organization of experts in the field of real estates – the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors /RICS/.
According to the review of the European residential markets, annually made by the organization, the prices of properties in Bulgaria have increased by approximately 20% in comparison to 22% in Denmark and 33% in Poland.
However, this growth is different from the increase of less than 15% in the average annual prices in 2006, reported by the National Statistical Institute. This growth was the fastest in the last three months of the year when the values of the average apartments in the big Bulgarian towns increased by 17% on the annual basis up to BGN 904 per square meter. According to one of the leading Bulgarian agencies, the prices have increased by approximately 15% during the year, before the admission of Bulgaria to the European Union. The large growth in the recent months of the year was explained by the Bulgarian experts with the security connected with the membership in the EU, which stimulates larger demand.
Lithuania and Romania have also marked a two-digit rate of the price growth, measured in percents by the countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The prices in the Czech Republic and Croatia were at a standstill or have marked a little change, according to the reports of the data of the organization.
“There were expectations that last year would be the one when the markets of residences in Europe would cool down under the pressure of interests, the more and more difficult accessibility of the properties and the increased offering on many markets”, says the author of the research, Michael Bol, quoted by the British newspaper – “The Guardian”. However, the continent has passed through “another strong year” with respect to few countries, including Great Britain, which have marked a significant increase in the speed of price growth. Portugal was the only country, which has experienced a slight drop in the prices last year, while Germany continued having its low growth close to the zero, reported by the data of the Institute of the British experts.
According to experts most probably the only more rapidly developing markets in Europe were those of mortgage credits. The increase in the interest of the European Central Bank, on which the prices of loans in Euro depend, did not appear to be a serious influence of the fast growth of the housing credit in eight of all 12 countries within the zone of the EU.
According to data of the Bulgarian National Bank, the housing loans in Bulgaria increased by more than 70% up to BGN 3.19 milliard until the end of November last year in comparison to the previous year.
Stroitelstvo Weekly Magazine
Friday, February 9th, 2007
British interest in Bulgarian properties goes up
Over the period of one week, two British print media published articles saying that Bulgaria’s real estate sector was among the most attractive in Europe.
On February 7, the Guardian reported that Bulgaria, together with Poland, Estonia and Denmark, was among the European Union countries with a steady increase in property prices in 2006. The Guardian quoted a survey done by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which analysed price growth in 26 European countries.
On February 5, the magazine A Place in the Sun reported that Bulgaria was the third most-popular country for investments in real estate in Europe. Bulgaria was outranked only by Spain and France. Well-established locations started to lose their market share at the expense of new destinations like Bulgaria, Dubai and Cape Verde. In such untrodden locations, prices for real estate were much lower, especially given the rising prices and interest rates in Great Britain, the magazine said. Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and Portugal were also among the top 10. However, as a result of the oversupply of real estate in some parts of Bulgaria, prices in this country would probably remain relatively low, the magazine said.
In view of this, two reports in the news about a 235 million euro British investment in Bulgaria did not come as a surprise. At the beginning of the month, Bulgarian Land Development (BLD), a London-listed Bulgarian property developer, said it would invest in five residential projects in Bulgaria, worth a total of 235 million euro. The developments are in the Black Sea resorts Albena and Sozopol, the winter resorts Pamporovo and Bansko, and Sofia, BLD managing director Hristo Iliev said.
The Harmony Hills apartment complex near Albena will include 202 apartments. Buyers have reserved 75 of the flats and signed preliminary contracts for the purchase of 53 flats, evidence of the interest shown by British clients. Construction on the Harmony Hills complex is expected to kick off in February and to be completed in 15 months. According to Iliev, all apartments in the Paradise View complex near Sozopol have been reserved. BLD developments in Sozopol, Pamporovo and Bansko feature a total of 149 apartments, as BDL bought the three projects in October 2006 for 6.8 mln euro ($8.8 mln euro).
The company’s fifth project, BLD Sofia Tower, is a luxury apartment building where flats are selling at 3000 euro a sq m.
SofiaEcho