The real estate market in Bulgaria

For several years Bulgaria has become the main destination for Russian overseas property buyers. At the beginning of the decade, there was a boom in the Bulgarian market: in a record 2003, house prices doubled. The global recession has exposed the instability of both the Bulgarian economy itself and the local real estate market. Inflation in 2008 jumped to 12%, GDP, according to forecasts of the European statistical agency Eurostat, in 2009 will fall by 5.9%. Bulgarian banks, suffering from a lack of finance during the crisis, stopped lending to developers and home buyers, as a result, the volume of construction also decreased. If in the 1st half of 2008 4961 building permits were issued and 28,297 units of real estate were built, then in the 1st half of 2009 the number of permits was 3301, and the number of built real estate units was 11,036. That is, the market actually lost weight in two. Despite all the ups and downs, Bulgarian resort real estate remains one of the cheapest in Europe.