Valeri Atanassov, executive director of Soravia Bulgaria: We are positive that new industrial and office projects will be needed

The crisis is hitting our sector mainly in two ways. Firstly, the credit portfolios of banks, which have changed their lending requirements, have been shrinking in the past two months. Secondly, a number of our potential tenants have cut their budgets.
We are not a major player on the residential market, at least now, but judging by our observations on this segment we think that the long-expected burst of the bubble will materialize. We may see values dropping down up to 15-20%. Yet properties in better locations will hold their prices. Once the normal working and economic rhythm is recovered on the way out of the crisis I do not expect prices to rise significantly but will rather remain about the current levels. 
We are upbeat that Bulgaria and the eastern parts of Europe will need development of new infrastructure, large industrial projects and offices. We expect segmentation of residential supply. The new trends will include better quality of construction, better infrastructure near residential areas and better social and natural environment.
We expect that the regular working rhythm and the economy will recover in autumn this year. The crisis has made some investors step off the scene but there is also another factor that has pushed them away. These are the local institutions and the difficult communication processes with them and their administration. They impede the work of developers. We have to do some thinking in this direction in order to improve the mutual communication because, once investors return to the Bulgarian market, they will be quite cautious. Everything depends on the particular conditions that the state and municipalities will provide to them.

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