The housing market in Northwestern Bulgaria is heating up

The Bulgarian housing market has been particularly sizzling in the last two years. It keeps conquering new highs in terms of prices, and investors are erecting new buildings as densely as possible. Logically, one can find the highest property prices in the four largest cities - Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna and Burgas.

However, the boom in the real estate market in Northwestern Bulgaria is uniquely impressive, especially given the waning business investments there even marked by the recent departure of manufacturing enterprises.

A jump in housing prices

Annual basis prices in the three main cities of the region have risen as follows: in Vratsa by 17.5%, in Vidin by 22.6% and in Montana by 20.6%. For comparison in the national capital Sofia, the annual growth is 6.9 percent - according to data from the consulting company Bulgarian Properties.

This is probably due to a catch-up effect for regions where market development had previously lagged behind.

It was an extraordinary surprise for me when I found out that houses in the villages near Vratsa are available for prices between 50 and 70,000 euros. In Vidin Province, for example, the price of such houses is 15,000 euros," commented Snezhana Stoycheva, manager of the Imoti.net platform, for Economic.bg.

According to her, the reason for this increase is the planned construction of the Vidin-Botevgrad expressway and people's expectations for improved transport connectivity to the region. For now, however, the Bulgarian state is having serious trouble with the implementation of this project. The most problematic stretch is precisely the road section between Montana - Vratsa, for which no new road design has been offered since 2013, after the previous one was rejected.

A check in the various property platforms confirms that in the villages of Vratsa Province, the housing prices are indeed rather high. Apartments in the city itself reach 125,000 euros. From the amendment registry to the urbanization plan of the city of Vratsa for 2024, there are a number of new residential construction projects visible.

To a large extent, all this can be attributed to a change in buyer behavior in recent years when people began to pick smaller settlements en masse.

The future of real estate also requires flexibility in order to cope with the challenges of demographic changes, or migrations to less populated areas," says Address.bg, a real estate agency, in its market analysis.

What is happening in the Bulgarian housing market?

Housing prices in Bulgaria increased by an average of 14% over the last 12 months, as indicated by the Bulgarian Properties data. That real estate agency analyzed prices in the main cities at the end of the third quarter of 2024, compared to a year earlier.

For comparison, for the year 2023, there was a price rise of 21%. It can be seen that, in general, price increases are slowing down this year compared to the previous one but remain relatively high, the agency says.

The highest price increase per square meter is in the provincial centres of Vidin, Kyustendil, Lovech and Sliven, where an increase of more than 20% has been recorded for the second year in a row. The reason for this is once again the catch-up effect for regions where the market development had previously lagged behind.

It is curious that Sofia, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora report growths between 6.9 and 7.7%, which is below the national average. At the same time, housing demand in these cities remains among the highest.

The upward trend has been sustained throughout the year, with no indications of a market slowdown or an impending correction," summarizes Polina Stoykova, executive director of Bulgarian Properties.

Properties in Sofia

In the capital city, the most expensive districts traditionally have been Doctor's Monument (with an average price of 3,691 euros/sq.m.) and Yavorov and Ivan Vazov (with prices slightly above 3,000 euros/sq.m.). They are followed by the districts of Medical Academy, Izgrev and Iztok with average prices of residential properties of around 2770 euros/sq.m. Obelya, Lyulin, Nadezhda and Levski are among the neighborhoods with the lowest prices in Sofia - ranging from 1,300 to 1,500 euros/sq.m.

The steepest price increase, compared to the end of 2023, is seen in the districts of Vrabnitsa, Geo Milev, Ivan Vazov, and Hladilnika (+13%).

The smallest price increases (+3 %) were for homes in Mladost, Poligona, Levski G, Gotse Delchev, Druzhba 2, and Zaharna Fabrika.

Newly constructed buildings continue to be the most preferred housing type among buyers, and due to the limited supply for these, there is an ongoing trend of convergence of the prices of existing buildings and greenfield projects.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov