The Bulgarian city of Plovdiv now ranks at number two in the number of property deals that happened in 2007. The city says some 20,000 sales happened in comparison to 18,000 seen by Varna. Varna's property market has been seen as a more diverse one and usually offers the country's second highest transactions.
A closer look at Plovdiv shows that the city has a 61% increase in property prices in its downtown sector as compared to the same area in 2006. This was in from a Foros real estate agency report. In this area of the city, some 18% of a rise was seen on average for rental rates. In Sofia, the country's leading property market, only a 5% increase was seen. Varna also had a 5% rental increase.
As a look towards the future, the market here is estimated to see a 15% rise in property prices through 2008.
Bulgaria's numbers have fallen sharply in the last few months as the global slowdown took hold. Some investors see this is a good thing, though, especially for Bulgaria and other European markets. As reported by Holiday Lettings, Robin Bowman who is editorial director at Property Secrets said, "Basically, a slowdown was coming anyway. This way it may well come before we see property markets, as well as whole economies, becoming dangerously overheated."
