MultiProperty Service's Blog

The fifth Balkan Property Exhibition BalPEx will be held from April 24 to 26 at the Inter Expo Centre on Tsarigradsko Chaussee in Sofia.
>

The main focus of the event is on offers from Bulgaria and the region. Traditionally, the event also offers exchanges of information and experience, by offering and facilitating services with regional partners.

The core of the annual exhibition traditionally is residential and holiday properties as well as business projects from Bulgaria and the surrounding area.

Organisers say that more than a million projects and more than 600 companies in the sector have been presented in the past two years, with the event attracting more than 30 000 visitors.

The exhibition is part of the Balkan Property Week. The Balkan Real Estate Conference – BalREc – with a focus on “opportunities in the time of crisis”, is being held from April 24 to 26 at the Inter Expo Centre, Stroitelstvo Gradut reported.

Among the main speakers during the exhibition will be Rossen Plevneliev from Residential Park Sofia, Andrew Pierson from King Sturge, Metodi Metodiev from the Institute of Market Economics in Sofia, Anton Slavchev from Colliers International, as well as many others.

The main subjects to be discussed are the business environment in Bulgaria, current state of legislation, alternative forms of project financing, control and utilities, retail centres, industrial and logistics zones, residential property and others.

Source: propertywisebulgaria

Luxury rentals firm Cleves said on May 19 that it launched 18 new apartments with parking spaces in a three-million euro building on Pimen Zografski Street in the Sofia borough of Izgrev.
>

“We continue to believe that the fundamentals of the Sofia market are positive,” Cleves’ general manager Peter Diakov said in a statement.

According to Diakov, with Sofia's highly-skilled labour force, continued inward investment, falling inflation and a robust banking system, “if you take the long view, Sofia is a great place to invest.”

Cleves Izgrev offers a selection of fully furnished one-bedroom and two-bedroom rental apartments, as well as three-bedroom duplexes, the company said, without providing price details.

Cleves has acquired 150 apartments in 9 developments across Sofia, which it is moving fast to bring them to the rental market. The firm said it expected to launch a further 100 units over the next 12 months.

Sourse: Sofia Echo and Prortywise

The Bulgarian Government’s fast access visa system for non-EU nationals who own property in Bulgaria is reaping results with Russians emerging as the largest group, Deputy Foreign Minister Milen Keremedchiev told The Sofia Echo on May 11.
>

Keremedchiev said that it was Russians, followed by Serbians, who had best exploited the procedure to provide them with a three-year long multiple entry visa.

The logic behind the visa system, which has been in effect for more than a year, provides for granting an entry visa to non-EU nationals who own property in Bulgaria.

If non-EU nationals own property in Bulgaria they can apply for a multiple entry visa for up to three years, also valid for their spouses and children under 21. Applicants must also have had a Bulgarian visa – minimum one year-long, issued before that. Besides the three-year long multiple entry visa, foreigners would be entitled to stay in Bulgaria for 90 days.

“This has had an effect, especially when it comes to interest shown by Russians,” Keremedchiev said. “All they need do is present their title deeds to one of the Bulgarian embassies’ consulate services and apply for the visa.”

Since non-EU nationals cannot own land in Bulgaria they could apply for this procedure by presenting a document stating that they owned the company that had bought the property. “Many people do so when it comes to owning a single house but as regards owning an apartment in a residential building, there is no problem for non-EU nationals to have the deed in their name,” Keremedchiev said.

The procedure came about when many Russian tour operators and real estate companies said that Bulgaria’s protracted visa system policy was deterring Russians from visiting.

The decision was also based on dwindling interest from British and Irish buyers, perturbed by continuing rising prices and the beginnings of the global economic crisis. Russians, on the other hand, still found prices viable. This, allied to close cultural ties and a shared past, made Bulgaria an attractive destination, hence the request for a streamlined visa system.

According to some complaints, property-owning Russians in Bulgaria were also treated the same as Russian tourists. As a result, Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry introduced a separate procedure for non-EU nationals that entitled them to access to their property. How this will change when Bulgaria joins the EU Schengen Agreement area is yet to be seen.

Sourse: Sofia Echo

Bourgas home owners will be coerced, where necessary, into carrying out a major overhaul and restoration of the exterior of their properties. They will be given “a decent time frame in which to conduct the necessary work. In case they fail to do so, the municipality will renovate the buildings with its own resources, after which it will collect the funds through legal action, if necessary,” Dnevnik daily has reported.
>

Bourgas mayor Dimitar Nikolov announced during a press conference held in Bourgas town hall that a new order is being formulated regarding the town centre's major rejuvenation programme, which envisages all property owners who own real estate on central pedestrian streets in Bourgas, particularly along Alexandrovska and Bogoridi, complying with the municipal operation.

The scheme envisages the thorough revamp of pedestrian streets in the centre of Bourgas, once the municipal order is approved. The task will be achieved gradually, with the Troikata Square, Alexandrovska and Bogoridi streets falling within the first phase of the renovation process.

Owners of houses that have cultural monument status will also be obliged to renovate their exteriors. However, in that particular case, they will have to obtain special documents first from the National Institute of Cultural Monuments (NICM).

This major operation to renovate the centre of Bourgas has been given even greater urgency by the decree issued by Nikolov stating that the period of time allocated for the refurbishment of Tsar Simeon St and the segment between Bulair and Cyril and Methodii has been effectively halved. It emerges that now those projects will have to finished within 25 days, complete with new pavements, tarmac, green belts, alleys and parking spaces.

Source: propertywisebulgaria and sofia echo

Does anyone has two bedroom apartment in Sunny Beach that wishes to let for long term during the all summer season? We have lots of different local Bulgarian workers in Sunny Beach who are looking for accommodation during the all summer of 2009. We need 1 and 2 fully furnished and unfurnished apartments in Nessebur and Sunny Beach areas and if anyone who has an apartment there wants to rent it out please contact us on +359 56 906 294.

The first foreign tourists have arrived at Bulgarian Black Sea resorts, Tsvetan Tonchev, chairperson of the Bulgarian Tourism Chamber told Bulgaria Focus news agency on May 8 2009.
>

The first tourists were from Germany, he said, and noted that their arrival coincided with the official opening of the 2009 summer season on the Black Sea on May 5 2009.

On that day the opening of the season was marked in the Black Sea cities of Varna, Bourgas and the largest Bulgarian sea resort Slantchev Bryag (Sunny Beach), he said.

“About 60 per cent of the beds that Bulgarian Black Sea hotels offer are full,” he noted. “Three, four and five star hotels that are close to the beach are almost fully occupied,” he said.

Tonchev said that the first wave of tourists numbered between 15 000 to 20 000 people and noted that he expected a drop in the number of visitors compared to the summer of 2008.

He also said that prices in Bulgaria and in Greece have basically levelled. “However, I hope that we will have more revenue this year from more affluent tourists willing to spend more,” he said.

He said that there was an increase in the number of tourists coming from Russia, Poland and Israel but a drop in the numbers of German tourists.

Summer Season in Sunny Beach officially starts on the 15th of May. The ceremony will take place at 20:00 hours local Bulgarian time. Everyone is preparing for the new 2009 summer season but how good will these Season be? The expectations are that tourist will be down by 17% this year and the holiday makers who will visit the resort of Sunny Beach will be mainly from the Eastern Europe and Scandinavian countries. Polish and Romanian will be the main holiday makers and other nationality such as British and Irish will not be as much as was in the past. Currently there are 300000 holiday apartments and majority of those which are out of the central resort areas will remain empty during the season. Apartments in complexes with facilities in place and good location will receive some tourist and generate good rental income during the months of June, July, August till mid September.