5% rise in apartment prices in Sofia, Bulgaria during the first nine months

Brokers observe an imbalance between supply and demand for housing in the most prefered areas of the capital.
Even smoother, the growth of residential property prices in Sofia continues, some agencies report. With 5-6% more expensive apartments in the capital in the first nine months of the current year, brokers report.

The agencies say that there is an imbalance between demand and supply of housing in some of the most preferred neighborhoods, such as Lozenets, Doctor's Memorial, Ivan Vazov and Yavorov, due to the depleted opportunities for new construction and the decreasing number of sites that are available on the secondary market.

The number of buy-in queries received by the agencies reported a growth of 2.35% for the third quarter compared to the same period in 2016 and a 14% drop from the previous second quarter of this year.

Interest in houses in the capital is progressively rising and now represents 20.5% of the total demand for housing for the period, brokers report.

Leading demand for apartments remains - about 77.9% of the agency's clients are divided between the different types of apartments and a significantly smaller share of buyers (1.55% of the total demand) are directed to an investment in a studio, another residential property.

By the middle of the second half of the year, the most preferred apartments are two-room apartments with nearly 42% of total demand, and three-room apartments respond to the needs of just over 30% of buyers.

As a result, customers are stopping for 70-110 square meters of purchase items, with their final selling price most often in the range of 80,000 to 125,000 euros.

The most important interest is the purchase of a dwelling in the center, Lozenets, Vitosha, Reduta, Dianabad, Krastova vada, Svoboda, Studentski grad, Oborishte, Ovcha kupel, , "Borovo" - over 46% of clients are looking for a home in these neighborhoods.

Third-quarter residential property in the capital fell 24.5 percent from a similar period in 2016. About 5.25 percent of sellers offer houses, and the main group of sellers - 92.13 percent - apartments. The remaining residential properties (studio, penthouse, house floor) account for about 2.6% of the total supply.

The largest offer for the period is reported for three-room dwellings (almost 48%), with a total average price of 1127 EUR / sq.m for the capital. (6.5% growth over the previous quarter), followed by two-room apartments (38% share) and an average asking price of 969 EUR / sq.m. (a decrease of 6%).

At the bottom of the list are multi-room (10.6%) with an average bid price of 1074 euro / sq.m (3.2%) and one-room (about 6.1% of the total) euro / sq.m. (down 8.8%).

The most active among the clients of the agency that want to sell property is the offer in the Lyulin region (10.9%) with an average asking price of 804 euro / sq.m, followed by Svoboda (8.1 %) - 912 euro / sq.m, Mladost area (7.3%) - 1117 euro / sq.m, Zones (6.9%) - 1024 euro / sq. M; Lozenets quarter (6.5%) and average price of 1741 EUR / sq.m, Studentski grad (6%) - 896 EUR / sq.m .; Center (2.6%) - 1792 EUR / sq.m.