Positive signs in the slump

Sometimes a market slowdown could have a positive effect. A slump in the demand for vacation apartments will reverberate in development and determine a rise of quality, developers have suggested. The reason is they have been forced to offer larger incentives to attract buyers whose numbers have dwindled.
As a whole asking prices have kept their levels from a month before but compared to the beginning of the year there are falls of between 15 and 20 per cent in certain places. In the first quarter of the year the most expensive apartment totaling 80 sq m in Galata, a coastal area of Varna, was offered for EUR 1,690 per sq m while in November the highest price there was EUR 1,230 per sq m. In Sts. Konstantin and Elena, a nearby resort, the upper price now reaches EUR 2,210 per sq m as in the first quarter EUR 2,380 per sq m were asked for the most expensive home. The cheapest apartments now cost EUR 800 per sq m, while in Spring their prices were around EUR 1,030, showed Property Index's data.
Yet most places along the North Black Sea Coast see stable levels of holiday homes offering in the last three months of the year. Golden Sands is the most expensive with prices starting from 900 and reaching EUR 3,000 a sq m.
According to developers, this trend will be in force for completed apartments in good locations. New projects will be approached with more cautiously and with higher requirements for the quality of construction.
In the South, even record asking prices have been seen recently. Homes in a complex under construction in Sozopol, which pledges luxury, are for sale for EUR 3,100 per sq m. In the beginning of the year prices there barely reached EUR 2,000 per sq m. Levels around and above EUR 3,000 per sq m are typical for the most expensive properties in Sunny Beach and St. Vlas as well as in one of the golf resorts in the North. But just 20 km South of Sozopol apartments in a complex in Primorsko with pending construction works are sold for what is near the lower end of the market - EUR 570 per sq m.
In mountain resorts the low end starts about EUR 500-800 per sq m and reaches up to 2,100 per sq m. This is the price of a luxuriously finished 54-sq-m apartment in Borovets. But there is even bigger retention of the investment activity as compared to the seaside. Prices are virtually in a standstill and are formed by a few larger projects and single offers for existing properties, which have stayed on the market for months.