BalPex - the bulgarian expo for properties in Bulgaria -opens this week

For a few days the capital of Bulgaria will gather the real estate agencies and Investors in The Bulgarian property market for South-eastern Europe. from 18 April to 20 April in the big expo center are expected some of the biggest real estate agencies and promising investors in the region. This year i the third Balkan exposition for properties -Balkan Property Exhibition -BalPex and the second conference for the experts in Real Estate Market.

The companies which will take part in the expo are about 150. Investors, consultants, architects, brokers, publishers and financial institutions will show the newest property and investment opportunities in Bulgaria and South Europe. The new tendencies in the property market will be available for every visitor, interested in the news about possibilities for buying Bulgarian properties.
The organizers of Balkan Property Exhibition expect more companies and delegates from international companies compared to the last year expo.
The companies and investors will discuss the financial expectations for the next year and the effect of the last year crisis in the Balkan property market. Interesting will be the presented solutions for upcoming structural changes in the region, needed for process of growth.

Interesting fact is the absence of real estate offers at the expo for the rural property market, which was the most wanted among the foreigners in the past years.

The third international exposition for real estate and investment projects in the Balkans will take place in over 4000 sq.m. and will present the biggest commercial, vacantional and industrial projects in Bulgaria. Not only real estate agencies and investment companies will take part in this year BalPex. The visitors will be surprised with companies for real estate managment, financial institutions, banks, law- solicitors , building contractors, media consultants, publishers and so on.
In this year's BalPEx will be presented a wide selection of residential properties in the biggest cities - Varna, Sofia, Plovdiv, Bourgas and many other cities. Interesting vacantional property projects in mountaine and seaside resorts like Bansko, Pamporovo, Borovets, Kavarna, Sunny beach and many more.

Expectations are for large number of business properties and commercial offers like the new shopping Malls in the whole country. Two extraordinary industrial parks will be exposed, one of which is the largest in the Balkans.
The visitors will have the chance for seeing the latest investment projects and property opportunities in Bulgaria and to have a free consultation with some of the most popular real estate experts and financial institutions in Bulgaria. Credit experts will consult the buyers and brokers from real estate agencies will offer the best properties available. The expo will be interesting and for the owners, willing to sell their properties .

Opportunities for rural tourism in Bulgaria

One of the latest opportunities for tourists in Bulgaria is Rural tourism and many of the UK visitors find very attractive to buy one of the cheapest properties in this magnificent places.

Opportunities for rural tourism are offered in a number of villages situated in environmentally clean regions. Usually this small hotels and private homes, are in the mountain regions, near reservats and national nature parks, like in the Rhodopes, Pirin, Rila and Balkan ranges with well preserved old crafts, architecture and rich Bulgarian traditions and folklore. There is a large choice of guest-houses, (from one-star- to 4 star hotels). Many of the offerers include home made traditional meals, eco-tourism in reserved nature parks. This is one of the cheapest way for visiting Bulgaria and the easy way for acquaintance the Bulgarian culture and to feel the Bulgarian hospitality.

You will be surprised from the prices of food and drinks, cheep is also transport, attractions, clothes and many more stocks. But choosing the rural tourism for different kind of vacation, you will find that some of the smallest private houses offering this service will offer you all this thing for free - as a part of the Bulgarian hospitality or as a part of the price -type all inclusive. In the mountines of Bulgaria you cam find properties for less than 5 000 Euro . The small hotels in countryside areas offers a price for one bed room for 5 to 6 Euro per night.

This vacantion will be more pleasant for you than the luxury resorts with expensive prices and aggressive salesmen. Probably you will enjoy this peace and beautiful nature and will want to buy a home for the future vacations or for permanent living.

The price for two floors house in Bulgaria`s countryside is starting from £5000 or even cheaper in some regions like Vidin and Dobrich . Some of the properties are in calm villages - located in a beautiful area close to the sea coast, with a very good road connections. Very close to the local regional center houses or villas are not so cheap, but compares to other countries in Europe are several times lower. The prices of Bulgarian Properties are still increasing and are attractive for all foreign investors and property buyers.

UK customers stoped to invest in Bulgarian resorts

British home buyers have disappeared from Bansko, a leading Bulgarian ski resort and until recently a hot spot for people seeking moderately priced holiday properties.

Since the global credit crunch took hold, purchases by UK investors of Bulgarian properties priced between EUR 45,000 and EUR 90,000 (GBP33,500 - GBP 67,000) have fallen sharply, according to Sofia-based estate agents.

Hugh Fraser, of Sofia-based LS Property, said: "Our research suggests that only about 30 apartments were sold in Bansko last month and the buyers were Russians and Greeks." This compares with sales two years ago of more than 500 properties a month to UK and Irish buyers.

Such a steep decline suggests Bulgaria's holiday home boom, which has focused on Bansko and Sunny Beach, the leading resort on the Black Sea coast, may be over.

Property developers have been offering discounts of 8-12 per cent in buildings nearing completion in Bansko. Meanwhile, prices for new apartments in Sunny Beach have fallen by 7-8 per cent.

"Attitudes have changed. With house prices stagnating, it is much harder for UK customers to release equity to buy a second home," said Rossen Dimov, managing director of Rockarch Estates, a London-based agency selling Bulgarian properties.

Mihail Chobanov, chief executive of Bulgarian Properties, one of the country's biggest estate agencies, believes that about 50 per cent of UK investors who took a punt on the Bulgarian market four years ago are now trying to sell their properties. "Speculative buyers want to cash out and move on," he said.

While tightening credit conditions have given the market a decisive downward push, Bulgaria's appeal for UK investors was already starting to fade.

Rapid development at Bansko and Sunny Beach resulted in an over-supply of lower-priced apartments, putting a severe strain on local infrastructure. An estimated 85 per cent of UK investors bought properties off-plan without having visited Bulgaria.

On arrival in the country many were disappointed by mediocre construction quality and local developers' lack of concern for the environment.

Rental incomes on the Black Sea coast have been lower than expected, according to investors. "Estate agents talked about a six-month season and yearly returns of 6-8 per cent. The reality is more like three months and under 3 per cent," said David, a Dubai-based IT worker who bought at Sunny Beach two years ago. He declined to give his full name.

Two years ago 90 per cent of Rockarch's customers were UK investors, including a sizeable number of expatriates living in the Gulf states. Mr Dimov said the client mix changed last summer, with cash-rich Russians replacing buyers from the UK.

"In the past six months 60 per cent of sales were to Russians, 10 per cent to Greeks and Poles and only 30 per cent to the British," Mr Dimov said.

Julia Titova, of Best Real Estate, a Moscow-based estate agent, said Bulgaria had overtaken Montenegro and Spain as the most popular foreign country for Russians wanting to buy a holiday home.

"Bulgaria is seen as an excellent place for family holidays," Ms Titova said. "It is nearer than the Mediterranean and it is more affordable than the Russian Black Sea resorts."

Information By Kerin Hope and Theodor Troev
Financial Times

Bulgaria property investments with record growth for 2007

Bulgaria property investment has proven to be the country's economic driver with a record-breaking turnover of €11.36 billion in 2007.

As the world's strongest property market in 2007, Bulgaria property investment has made a huge €2.36 billion increase on 2006 figures, and is successfully keeping up the momentum for 2008.

Many local and international property experts predicted the year's increase to reach 25% to 30% however by September the market had actually risen by 32% with many major cities, such as Sofia, already recorded impressive growth this year.

The huge property price rise has been largely attributed to a good mortgage market, high annual revenue of properties and the weak impact of the world financial crisis in Bulgaria. The Bulgarian financial market has not been impacted by US sub-prime crisis due to no cross-border banking, with consumer borrowing continuing at a steady growth rate.

UK property investors, who accounted for 40% of all Bulgaria property investment in 2007, followed closely by Russia occupying 38% of the market have played a primary role in maintaining excellent market conditions, whilst further strengthening the country's financial stability and adding to the robust appeal for Bulgaria property investment.

Nikolin Gavrailov President of the Bulgarian Entrepreneurial Chamber in Building reported the turnover for the construction industry as €5.6 million adding, "The (previous) lack of modern apartments, retail, and administrative buildings caused the construction boom. The investment growth in tourism, production, and the need for modern infrastructure also stimulated construction. Construction sector growth is expected to be between 12% and 16% year on year until 2010."

Alongside such strong growth in Bulgaria property investment, the economy has experienced sustained growth with The Economist forecasting a consistent 6.4% GDP growth year on year. Bulgarian emigrant workers are investing back into the country in particular retail and housing sectors, also boosting the Bulgarian economy.

According to preliminary figures from the World Bank, remittances from Bulgarians working abroad will amount to €1.26 billion in 2007. However, the Bulgarian National Bank have stated the actual figure to be closer to €2 billion or 7% of the gross domestic product.

In a bid to ensure a consistent flow of foreign direct investment (FDI), the Bulgarian government has made bold changes to the Bulgarian tax system. The new system will mean that both income and corporate tax will be charged at a very low 10%. This new flat rate applies to all workers, investors, and companies regardless of income or profit values, making Bulgaria a very tax efficient place to relocate or invest in.

From July 2008, budget airline Wizz Air will be the first operator to offer cheap internal travel from the capital city to the coast of Bulgaria. The low cost airline will operate four domestic flights per week between Sofia and Varna, and will expand flight frequency to the UK, Italy, Germany Spain, and Turkey.

Despite such rapid price growth, Bulgarian property investment remains very competitive and highly profitable in comparison with other European markets, giving the country a long-term profitable investment edge.

Information by : Obelisk

Bulgaria Named Fastest Riser on World's Property Market

Property prices in Bulgaria rose faster than anywhere else in the world in 2007, according to a survey by a leading British estate agency.

The European Union's newest member topped the latest Knight Frank Global Price Index with an annualised property price growth of 30.6 %. Bulgaria ranked three percentage points above the south-east Asian economic powerhouse of Singapore.

"Despite numerous concerns over the level of oversupply in a number of locations within Bulgaria - notably the winter ski resort of Bansko and selected coastal resort locations - Bulgaria has supplanted the previously top performing Baltic hotspot at the top of the Knight Frank league," the report declared.

Last year, the highest ranking country was Latvia, which saw property price growth of 56.9%. However, this dropped in 2007 to 10.9%, on concerns about overpricing in the Latvian capital, Riga.

Source by "Sofia News Agency"

Sofia starts work on Big Air snowboard World Cup event for Christmas

Sofia's city hall began working on the ramp for next week's Big Air snowboard World Cup event in the downtown of the Bulgarian capital.

The ramp in the Battenberg Square in Sofia downtown will be 100 by 32 by 20 meters and will weigh 600 tonnes, together with the snow, when complete.

The location of the event has heated spirits in Sofia, with councillors from two rightist parties asking that the event be moved to another location, where it would not disrupt traffic on one of the city's key boulevards.

Despite the city hall dismissed the fears of more congestion in the city, saying construction works will not have a major impact on traffic through downtown, nor can it move the timing of the event, scheduled for December 22.

"We can't move the event, so it is not around Christmas, as politicians have asked us. The international calendar of events has been announced long ago and we have to stick to it," the chairman of Bulgaria's ski federation Tseko Minev said.
"The TV time for it has been booked already. It's an honour for us to be the host of such an event, together with such big European capitals as Moscow, Berlin or Copenhagen," he added.
The snowboard lovers will be entertained in Sofia for live show or they could see the show on BNT.
Source ; www.novinite.com

Risks for the owners of properties in Bulgaria

Dozens of people become victim of the so called real estate mafia in Bulgaria every year, losing their properties in their desperate need to get money cash as soon as possible. But the results are shocking - the owners pawn flats or houses, whose value is set at hundreds of thousands Euro to receive some half of this sum immediately. Besides such "services" are at a high rate of interests.

Of course, everybody, who takes such a risk, hopes he is to get his property back right after he pays off his debts. But often that is not the case... At least not in Bulgaria...

Police probes proved that some owners of pawnbroker's have up to 15 properties registered in their names. Contracts however show that these flats have actually been pawned and according to the law they should not be transferred to the "brokers".

Suspicious foreign jobbing-houses, taxi drivers, change bureaus or Bulgarian nationals, who work abroad often play the roles of such "brokers". They even use forged documents to sell to ordinary people mortgaged properties.

Only 500 out of about 1400 jobbing-houses are legally working. The rest perform such activities without paying any taxes or insurances to their employees.

In most of the cases, police authorities and prosecutors could do nothing to help the situation when a fraud is uncovered as the cheats enforce their rights through misleading contracts, signed by the victims themselves. There follow endless lawsuits, which take no effect. Meanwhile the properties are sold to one or more other buyers.

The scheme that works flawlessly on this "market" is as follows: a cheat takes on a flat in a big residential building in the capital city of Sofia and pays in advance the rent for the next few months without signing a contract, which contains his personal data. In a while, an advertisement is published in the press, saying the flat concerned is for sale as the price is extremely low. The sell of course is to be carried out without the help of an estate agent. The false "owner" receives 10% of the property's value as a deposit from each of the candidate-buyers and nobody is able to find him anymore.

The other way of committing such frauds is to take on a real estate property, prepay the rent for the following few months without signing any official papers, taking the notarial act from the owner, making a copy, which is later used for "letting out" the house to other people.

Every year Bulgarian authorities are being tipped off on more than 20 cases of frauds related to sales and purchases of real estate properties, Economy police Inspector Gratsiela Petrunova announced recently.

"There are several organized rings that commit such crimes in the country," the official added.

Economy police experts found out that notaries are often involved in such crime schemes.

The criminals usually get the personal data of the potential victims in advance, authorities reported.
by "Darik Radio", Nikolay Hristov

Bulgaria has to renovate all ski facilities in Vitosha said Mark Girardelli before the start of the official season

Mark Girardelli was charmed and in the same time disappointed from ski lifts in Vitosha. The visit of the ski legend in Vitosha is right before to attend to the opening of the ski-season in the most famous Bulgarian ski -resort Bansko. The official start is on 17. December. This morning he gave interview for BNT after short skiing in Vitosha . He was surprised how close is the Bulgarian capitol Sofia to the beautiful Vitosha mountain.
" There is no such opportunity in Europe and probably in the world - only few minutes away from the capital to have the excellent chance for ski sport." But the ski facilities are old and far from the modern opportunities in the other Bulgarian ski resorts - he added. The renovation has to be made as quick as possible, because is inadmissible a country like Bulgaria and a city like Sofia not to use this excellent chance.
"The girls have to be extremly caution with the new ski track in Bansko. " warn he for the upcoming ski race in Bansko for the European championship.
He also , praise the represent ski-alpine racer for Bulgaria Kilian Albreht, for his latest results . He`s strong races are in the difficult tracts the last two were in much easy but we have to be proud of the results and to expect to finish in the first 20 soon.

We hope the promises that made the new owner of “Vitosha ski” for the new ski season that all ski lifts on Vitosha will be available with one lift pass. This is practice in complimentary in all modern alpine resorts in the world and Bulgaria has to follow this example quick.
Mr. Emil Semov, vice president of “Vitosha Ski” promise also that the lift passes will be chip card and that all the 15 km of ski slopes in Vitosha will welcome ski lovers, nearby Sofia with complete comfort of all skiers.
The private company "Vitosha ski" will invest 50o 000 BGN by December next year and will maintain the facilities for next 25 years as a new owner of the ski facilities in Vitosha mountain for the sum for the sum of 8,3 Millions BGN .

As Bulgarians and ski -lovers we hope for perfectly maintained ski slopes for all the ski season this year.