Housing prices

It's the same in Plovdiv, asking price rents have gone up a lot, I'm not convinced many people are actually paying 500 euro plus though unless they are medical students.

Personally I think it's a lot to do with the price of properties now, if you've paid 150k euro plus for an apartment to rent you need to ask a specific amount to make any sort of return on your investment, whether it's attainable doesn't seem to matter and agencies will advertise your property for whatever you tell them too regardless of whether it's achievable.

You have to look at the size/location/condition of the apartments on offer - and bear in mind that the asking price, for both rentals and sales, doesn't necessarily reflect what is actually attained.

Property prices in Sofia at the moment are pretty crazy - and the supply is smaller than I've seen it for several years.  But this isn't the first time there's been a property bubble here, and I'm pretty confident that it'll burst - mind you, I was also pretty confident that America isn't yet so far down the pan that the Orange One could end up in the White House again rather than the Big House, so what do I know? 😥  High property prices are reflected in high rents, but that's clearly unsustainable in the long run, even though it's quite common for there to be two earners in a family, or for a flat to be in multiple occupancy.

As a real estate agent I can tell you that the cause for the increase of rents in Sofia is the high demand and the also the war in Ukraine.

For example: recently I published a 430 euro rent apartment in Studentski grad in Sofia. 50 people called to view.

Housing prices in the EU rose by 48% on average in less than 10 years, creating difficulties for many Europeans.

The highest increase was seen in Hungary where prices have risen by more than 170% since 2015. The EU sees tackling this issue as one of its priorities for the coming years.

@mccallum

Same in Varna.

Back in 2022, we bought the maisonette apartment we're in now.  We left a rented apartment, in the Chaika area of Varna, having been paying a rent of 550 Leva per month (large 2 bedroom apartment 4th floor, in poor condition).  A week later, we returned to the address, to collect mail, which gave us an opportunity to speak with the new tenant - a Ukrainian family.  We asked how much their rent was. To our astonishment, it was now 1,550 Leva!  The guy told us he couldn't find anywhere else suitable.

It's the same with sales too.  Many Ukrainians have money to spend.  The maisonette we're living in now, was bought for €148,000 in April 2022.  We've been carefully looking at current values and, if we were to sell now, we could realistically get €230,000.  I say "realistically" because there are some vendors with highly unrealistic prices - I've seen €300,000 advertised, for a two bed apartment in Briz, Varna!

My thoughts are that, whilst demand remains healthy, prices will continue to rise and if demand ever falls, it will be temporary, perhaps causing prices to be static for a bit.  But many are coming to Bulgaria from all over the world, especially, Western Europe, Canada and the US, despite the visa requirements and demand, therefore, remains high.