Photo: Dimitar Kyosemarliev, Dnes.bg
Bulgaria enters 2023 with a calming of the real estate market, after last year saw the largest price increase in large cities compared to 2021, according to the executive director of one of the major real estate agencies, Gergana Tenekejieva, who presented the annual data for the housing market in 2022.
The observed trend from the last quarter and the previous quarter of last year of a decrease in the number of real estate transactions is an indicator of the expectation that housing prices will fall, but when exactly this will happen, it is too early to say, commented the expert.
The practice since 2008 shows that, due to the inertia of this market, the sensitive decline in transactions usually lasts for four years, and the prices decrease in a period of 6 years. In general, expectations are that the first reduction in housing prices will be felt in smaller cities.
According to the company’s data, between 15 and 20 percent is the drop in the number of purchases and sales in the capital, and the growth of prices for last year compared to the previous one in Varna was nearly 32 percent, in Sofia – by 25 percent, in Burgas and Plovdiv – by 17 percent. A 10 percent increase in the number of tenants is reported by the end of 2022.
According to the expert, at such a time, people with savings who think it will be a good investment for them and in view of inflation, can make an investment in real estate. However, people without savings are better off waiting to buy.
The dynamics of the real estate market show that over the past twenty years our incomes have grown six times, with the same increase in average housing prices. The only change for the last 30 years is related to a shift in the interest of buyers from properties in the center of large cities to other developing or developed areas, commented Tenekejieva. Shorter-term trends show a change in the time in which we make a decision to purchase a property – in the third quarter of last year it took three months, while in the last quarter the period is already one month, but at the expense of this with more home inspections . Another constant trend of recent years is related to the preservation of the number of participants in the real estate market – only ten percent of Bulgarians.
In 20 years, the average property prices in the country have risen about 6 times from 200 euros per square meter to 1,200 euros, and in terms of the number of transactions from 2013 to 2022, the trend shows that they are more concentrated in the big cities of Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas at the expense of their reduction in the last ten years in the smaller cities. The main profile of the buyers shows that some of them have investment intentions in the cities that are developing, others are buying properties to live in the cities where there is work.
A change can be seen in the flexibility of the buyers – to make a deal not once in their life, but to buy a property for the next ten years, regardless of the terms of the mortgage loans of 25-30 years, commented Tenekejieva.
There is no change among the sellers during these years – everyone thinks that their property is the most valuable and wants the most money for it. /BTA, Ekaterina Toteva/
