Archive for the 'Golf property' Category
Friday, January 26th, 2007
Golf courses sprout to rescue Bulgarian Black Sea coast investments
After several years of feverish development of holiday apartments and hotels, investors are redirecting their interest to commercial real estate.
Contrary to current trends, the three fully completed and functioning golf courses in Bulgaria are nowhere near the seaside. The first one was built in Ihtiman by the owners of SofiaAir and, having been the first attempt in the country, is not perfect. The golf course in Ihtiman was to a great extent a project of social rather than business significance. Local residents had turned the plot that the Municipality of Ihtiman sold for the purpose of building the golf course into an illegal rubbish depot. The investor recovered the land and thus relieved the local authorities of their financial and environmental problems. SofiaAir bought two more plots, respectively near Razgrad and Sliven. The company put the Sliven golf course into operation and is completing construction of the Razgrad one. SofiaAir is a co-investor in the grand project for a golf course, which is being built in the area between Bansko and Razlog. The other major investor in golf is advertising boss Krassimir Gergov. His is the third operating golf course in the village of Ravno Pole in the Municipality of Elin Pelin, which opened last year.
The investment in the golf course near Razlog amounts to EUR 62 million. The plot is in the valley of Razlog, three km from Bansko. The golf course will spread over 900 decares and will be 6210 metres in length. The built-up area will be about 120 000 sq m and will consist of hotels and apartment buildings. Mountain streams will flow through it and the golf club will be in the centre of the course.
The golf complex is already being built, and the first buildings – hotels and apartments, which are being built near the entrance of the golf course, are in an advanced stage of works. The huge investments in the golf course make the holiday villages attractive and the houses there are sold at prices ranging from EUR 1200 to 1500 a sq m. Landowners are selling plots of the 9th (second to lowest in terms of quality and fertility) category at prices of EUR 30-50 a sq m.
The logic behind the construction of the golf courses started by SofiaAir was to create a network of courses that covers the whole country. That is why they bought the plots near Razgrad and Sliven that, together with that in Ihtiman, form a kind of a ring in the country. According to SofiaAir president Lilyan Todorov, the area around the golf courses is of no importance to the golfers. In his opinion, the significant factors are the easy access and the variety, meaning lay and number of holes, and not the variety of properties that will be built nearby.
However the similar sites that have been built near the Black Sea coast follow exactly the opposite logic. They offer not only courses designed with the help of international golf pros, but also large surrounding areas for property construction.
There are over 10 investors’ projects for golf courses and they are at different stages of construction. According to the latest government data, investments this year in the more than 10 golf course projects that are currently in different stages of construction amount to 700 million leva. The largest share of these funds will go for construction of golf courses on the Black Sea Coast. The total amount of the investments in the region of the northern Black Sea coast is nearly EUR 320 million.
A first-class-investor certificate has been issued to Cabland Golf Complex for the construction of a golf course near Pomorie. The investment in the complex there is E 370 million, and the owners of the company are the registered in Malta Darnik Ltd (80 per cent) and Pomorie municipality (20 per cent). According to data provided by the manager of Cabland, Dario Tomaletti, the investments come from abroad, mainly from the Gallagher family, which invested in several golf courses in Spain. The course will be built over 2000 decares near the village of Kableshkovo.
Three investment projects for the construction of golf courses in the area of Balchik were announced. The Light House course is an investment of Pirin Golf and it was entirely designed by Ian Woosnam. The other two courses under construction in this area were designed by Gary Player – The Black Sea Rama near Balchik and The Thracian Cliffs near Kavarna.
Investors in The Black Sea Rama are Krassimir Gergov, sociologists Kuncho Stoychev and Andrey Raychev and investment company Landmark Properties. The site is being built in the area called Tabiyata and the investment amounts to nearly E 103 million. The price at which residential properties will be sold is EUR 1700 a sq m. Besides the course and the residences, the complex will offer tennis courts, a spa centre, gyms, football pitches and swimming pools.
The Thracian Cliffs complex will cost EUR 120 million and is the largest of the three projects. It is situated between the villages of Topola and Bozhurets on an area of 1400 decares. The investor here is the international company Thracian Cliffs Golf and SPA. The investors are planning to build a five-star hotel with 3000 beds.
According to Address Property Agency data, the price of land in the region of Balchik, Kavarna and Shabla ranges between E 40 and 100 a sq m due to the construction of the golf complexes. Property owners hope that investors in hotels and apartment buildings will follow the investors in the golf courses.
A month ago investment company Bulgarian Land Development purchased 85 decares of land at the price of EUR 3.3 million or EUR 39 a sq m. The plot will be used for the construction of a modern complex – Harmony Hills.
Presently 200-250 apartments in holiday complexes under construction are for sale and about as many again have already been sold in the region of Balchik and Kavarna. Apartments around the golf complexes are sold at the price of EUR 700-1500 a sq m.
The construction of a golf course and a holiday village is beginning in the vicinity of Primorsko. It will be in the area called Silihlyar. The investor in this site is Primorski Golf, in which the municipality holds 90 per cent of the shares with the contributed property of the land and the Yuzhen Golf Company, owned by Krassimir Gergov, holds the remaining 10 per cent.
Fort Nox started building a practice course and two apartment building complexes in the vicinity of Sunny Beach. The whole complex is situated on an area of 100 decares, but the course will be a small one – only 11 decares and will have only three holes. 800 apartments will be built on the rest of the area.
The company Oil and Gas Research and Production, which is based in Pleven and owned by the Varna group TIM, also announced its intention to build a golf course. They have registered the company Golf Shabla and as the name indicates they are going to work on the completion of the project of the site near Shabla. The investment here is EUR 20 million.
Manuel Sanches, President of Ferry Group that invested in the village of Katina, said that golf in itself was not profitable. Profit is made from the activities that go along with it. This is probably why so many golf projects are under construction at the Black Sea coast.
Address Property Agency stated that investors in the Black Sea coast hoped that these projects would make the tourist season longer and attract tourists of greater affluence.
Property brokers who deal in apartments in the new holiday complexes both at the seaside and in the mountains already point out golf course proximity as an advantage. The apartment buildings near the golf courses were extensively presented at the Property Expo forum at the end of October.
The golf complexes which are being built at the seaside are located next to or within the 20km zone, where old village houses and plots sold rapidly in the past four or five years. Investors bought houses in this area at the price of E 10 000 because they believed that after the coastal line is built-up the interest would shift to them. National property agencies such as Address, Foros, and Yavlena claim that there has been no demand for properties of this type for over a year.
The successful completion of the golf-complex projects in this area might revive the market of properties there and bring returns to the investors who bought properties with the intention of resale.
According to the experts from Address, if managed well, the properties near the holiday complexes may bring their owners annual rental returns of four to five per cent.
But this will happen only if the authorities in Bulgaria solve a number of major problems – the construction of roads, filtration stations and sewerage systems, electricity supply and the whole technical infrastructure.
Bulgaria Property Wise
Saturday, November 11th, 2006
New ski and golf centre to be built in the Kulinoto area near Bansko ski resort
An extravagant new ski and golf centre, designed to bring in tourists from around Europe, is to be built in Bulgaria it has been announced.
To be built in the Kulinoto area near Bansko resort, the centre will be aimed at year-round tourism, reports the Dnevnik Daily.
The ski area alone will boast 20 installations, with 20 kilometres of lift routes and ski tracks measuring 60 kilometres long.
And the golf area will include a hotel, clubhouse, commercial complexes and a golf playground.
Currently Bankso is Bulgaria’s primary ski resort with a season lasting from December 15th to May 15th, the longest of any Bulgarian resort.
Bansko is approximately 160 kilometres away from the capital of Sofia and a mere six kilometres from Razlog.
The resort has only come to the attention of skiers in the last decade or so, but in that time has become one of the most popular in Europe.
Dnevnik Daily
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
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
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.