Huge Unregulated Plot - ID 2182

A Moment For Hunkering Down 22/03/2008
At the peak of Sofia's housing boom in 2006 speculators were slapping deposits down on 10 off-plan Sofia apartments and doubling their money by selling them before they had even been built. Now prices in Sofia and Bourgas are sliding and Varna's property market is topping out, leaving late investors with burnt fingers and raising fears that the housing slump could trigger a wider economic "hard landing". The property markets of the Balkans states, like their economies, have boomed so spectacularly because they are tiny and there was so much pent up demand to move out of grim communist-era tower blocks. Easy credit from banks fighting for market share, as well as rapidly rising wages - up by more than 30 per cent last year in Bulgaria - merely lit the touch paper. As always,... more

New Vacation Property Projects Launched In Bulgaria 12/03/2008
More than four million sq m of vacation property are being constructed or planned in Bulgaria's resorts. In Blagoevgrad region, where the resorts of Banko, Razlog and Dobrinishte are situated, construction of more than a million sq m of vacation property was planned or launched, Yavlena real estate agency data show. The areas to be constructed were two times more than the figures for 2005, 24 Chassa daily said. Bourgas and Varna regions, where Bulgaria's biggest coastal resorts are situated, also saw an increase in the vacation areas to be built upon. The area totaled 200 000 to 300 000 sq m, 24 Chassa said. Property under construction exceeded many times the supply of finished real estate in 2006. The number of property deals in the southern coastal areas increased... more