35% Growth in Real Estate Transactions in Varna at the beginning of the year
“The short-term rental market is reviving”, said Dobromir Ganev, chairman of the National Real Estate Association, in an interview with the Bulgarian National Radio. Brokers note an increase in rental prices in Varna, as well as the provision of housing for tourism instead of hotels.
This comes after a difficult period when the trips of foreigners and Bulgarians were less due to the pandemic situation, Ganev pointed out. On the other hand, Ukrainian refugees have also contributed to the rise in rents:
“We notice in the last 6 months that the Ukrainian citizens on the Black Sea have put pressure on this market and the prices have gone up, it's hard to say by how much, but they have visibly increased. This pressure is also reflected in the vacant residential areas that are rented out. Again we see clauses to specify the relationships in the inflationary processes, i.e. a clause enabling landlords to adjust rents”.
The first quarter of the year was the strongest in terms of property sales in Varna, noted Dobromir Ganev.
"Varna was one of the cities that had the highest growth in the volume of transactions - 35% growth compared to the same quarter of 2021, and in 2021 it was the strongest for the last 13 years. Military actions and inflationary processes are the main factors that affect the market. The first quarter was not affected by these problems, on the contrary, it turned out that people prefer to acquire property in such a situation, to save their funds in this way, to protect them from depreciation. Expectations are that there will be no particular change in the volume of transactions. In terms of prices, the growth is about 7-8% until the middle of the year, on average for the country for the big cities".
According to him, a large number of construction contractors who have the opportunity and are financially stable have refused to sell:
“It was difficult for them to calculate the cost at that time when prices were jumping hourly. This had a beneficial effect on the secondary market, and many properties that had been holding back for the last year or two, not as high-quality as construction, for example, now found their buyers. We have to be careful. We are all afraid of excessive price increases, nobody wants one, so that what happened in many European capitals does not happen - unaffordability of housing".
Interest in country houses has also increased since the start of the Covid pandemic. Read More...
