Buy & Sell Bulgaria Insight Newsletter

Foreign individuals and companies with foreign shareholders bought real estate worth €817 million in the first six months of the year, Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) data showed.

The figure is a 79% increase over the same period of last year, when foreign buyers paid €457 million for real estate in the country.

Real estate purchases accounted for nearly 40% of all foreign direct investment in January-June, helping offset flagging inflows, according to the BNB figures.

Bulgaria has attracted foreigners for years with its warm climate, seaside and winter resorts and relatively low-priced properties, but interest grew into a boom last year.

Foreigners spent a total of €1.13 billion on Bulgarian real estate in 2006 and will almost certainly spend even more this year, although overconstruction is reducing demand in some areas.

Brits remain the driving force of the boom and paid, as a whole, more than anyone else to buy houses in Bulgaria, focusing on seaside properties and accounting for 15,9% of the total money spent.

Austria and Luxembourg follow in the rankings, with 13,2% and 11,8%, respectively, while Spaniards spent 7,5% of the total sum.

Bulgaria joined the EU in January this year, but that had no effect on the market, as foreigners could buy real estate long before the accession, with the exception of the land itself.

It was in May that Alan Coleman, our Deputy Managing Director, decided he would this year take a three-months summer holiday to enjoy his countryside home and the wonderful weather. He and his wife Margie still made regular visits to the office. On these occasions he would tell us how he was getting used to no work but reading, swimming, walking and…DIY-projects that his busy working schedule didn’t allow him to do before. We also noticed his tan getting darker as the weeks passed by. Alan and Margie also had family and friends come to stay with them over the summer, making the time go by very quickly. So, it was no great surprise to us here at Buy & Sell that he has made the decision not to return to work. But we are sure he will keep popping into the office. For example, we are happy that he accepted Chris’s offer to carry out a Sales training and he is currently giving tips to the guys at the Sales team twice a week. Alan is also getting ready to start building his new home on the Old Vines next year – at the office we already see the project in progress.

You can’t just relax and be on holiday forever… Here we are, back at work, with recharged batteries and ready to take the work-load, which is about to fall upon us, starting from September. We have much to do – 4 groups of UK and Cypriot investors will be arriving by the end of September and we are also organizing a charitable concert for orphans in the city of Varna. The concert will take place in the city centre, just by the Festival and Congress Hall at the Sea Garden entrance, and famous performers have accepted our invitation. We are all lined-up and ready for action.

And the best employee of September is……Didi Vladimirova (Executive secretary of Eurolink Finance). Every time you enter their office you see her beautiful and welcoming smile.

She is a member of Eurolink Investment Group since February 2006 and with hard work, ambition and willingness to help by writing financial documents, payment orders, etc, she is what she is now! Congratulations Didi!

Megy (ex-emloyee of the month) and Didi

There are many birthday boys and girls in September. Our dear colleagues Yaro (IT Manager) and Svetlana (Eurolink Finance), our clients and good friends Pippa Flynn, Vera Lesley Johnson-Staermose, Sally Sayed and David Charitat, have their special day this month. We would like to wish them all Many Happy Returns and the best of luck!

“We turn not older with years but newer every day”

Please note that upon purchase of land, plot or a property, through Buy & Sell Bulgaria, all translations of legal and company documentation is made by MANPOWER Bulgaria, Partner Company of Buy & Sell Bulgaria. Therefore, this service is not included in our commission and is accounted for separately.

By Sebastian Kinsman, Ex-partner
of Chris Violaris, MD of Buy & Sell Bulgaria

On the sultry evening of August 8, 2007, our daughter Lara Daphnie Kinsman was christened by the Bishop of Varna and Veliki Preslav, Metropolitan Kyrill, Member of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, at Varna’s Assumption Cathedral.

It was a considerable event. Friends arrived in Varna from across Bulgaria. Victoria’s mother, Valentina, and sister Anya, travelled from Kishiniev in Moldova, and my brother Ivan flew in with his family from Poland. Soderoula, Chris Violaris’s sister, had gone to great efforts to get every detail right for the elaborate ceremony. Chris Violaris also went to some expense buying the various paraphernalia at a special Orthodox Christening shop in Athens. There was a men’s choir to add to the richness of the occasion.

Anyway, Lara Daphne was eventually well and truly dunked in the giant copper bowl filled with water mixed with olive oil. She cried her eyes out, was dressed, and we moved on to the smart Horizont Restaurant for dinner. This took place on the terrace overlooking the Black Sea. This was a hell of a spread: shopska salad with rakia, lavrak, a local white-fleshed fish, accompanied by white wine produced from the grapes grown on “Marina Hills”, and dessert.

Everything had gone perfectly from the moment we rolled up at the Cathedral in Chris Violaris’s Rolls Royce Silver Phantom until the moment Alex, Lara’s half-brother, banged his head into a plate glass window at the restaurant, causing a bloody gash. And everything went perfectly again after a swift visit to the local Accident and Emergency Hospital where he was stitched up.

Lara Daphne Kinsman has quite exotic origins: English father, Moldovian mother - the beautiful Victoria, whose bright blue eyes she has inherited, Bulgarian half-brother, and now she has a Cypriot Godfather.

Clockwise from left to right: Sebastian, Chris, Chris’s wife Assia, Chris’s daughter Stephanie, Lara’s half-brother Alex and Victoria with Lara Daphne

By Chris Violaris, 03.09.2007

I HOPE IN YOU!

Can a drop of morning mist absorb the sun’s burning rays?

I thought not!

Can a single winter blossom break the bone-breaking cold?

I thought not!

Can a clatter of silver light, break the thickness of the darkness of my loneliness?

I thought not!

Can your innocent and unreserved smile, the gaze of your sky-blue eyes, break the darkness of my loneliness, break the bone-breaking cold and absorb the sun’s burning rays?

My God, Yes!

The Mediterranean island of Mallorca has come to symbolize everything bad about cheap, mass tourism: crowded beaches full of drunken louts ruining the holiday atmosphere. Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast wants to avoid the same fate.

Bulgarian tourist resorts along the Black Sea are in a quandary. They are drawn to the short-term money mass tourism brings, but don’t want to make the same mistakes as the Spanish.

Yet without a significant change in direction, that seems to be the way the country’s coastline is headed.

Investors have built gigantic hotel complexes, significantly increasing the number of beds along the Black Sea Coast. This has caused a price war. A night in a holiday apartment costs on average €25 ($34.50) while a night in a single room can be as little as €2. Hotels without a sea view sit nearly empty.

Too little infrastructure?

Empty beds are only one of the Bulgarian tourism industry’s problems. During the recent building spree, the accompanying infrastructure never materialized, said Marin Neschkow, head of the tourism board and a tourism expert at the university in Varna, the largest city on Bulgaria’s Black Sea Coast.

“Businesses have invested millions of euros to build beautiful hotel grounds, bars and other amenities. But the corresponding transportation and communication networks are lacking. There’s also insufficient water supply and sewage treatment”, Neschkow said.

Hotels are built so quickly that skilled workers can not be trained quickly enough. Their apprenticeships take several years. But the problem, according to Neschkow is not the dearth of places in Bulgarian training programs, it’s the fact that many students no longer stick around in the summers to work in the Bulgarian tourism industry. Instead, they go abroad.

“Tourism pays the lowest average wage in Bulgaria. It is not logical, when one thinks about it, that international tourism amounts to 14 percent of the country’s gross national product,” Neschkow said.

Tourism provides two billion euros each year, approximately half of Bulgaria’s trade deficit.

Responsible tourism?

The tourism industry represents the biggest hope for an economic boom in Bulgaria. The number of tourists continues to rise and Bulgaria has managed to build modern hotels, which provide quality similar to that guests would expect to find in central Europe. That contrasts with nearby Romania, Neschkow said.

But Bulgaria needs to be careful not to rely solely on Black Sea mass tourism, Neschkow said. In the long term, the country will need to increase not only the overall revenue from tourism but also how much each tourist spends.

It seems the Bulgarian government is considering a change in its tourism strategy.

“We’re trying to market Bulgaria as a year-round tourism destination,” said Stanislaw Nowakow of the state tourism agency.

“We’re actively promoting the possibilities in health and wellness tourism, since there are a lot of mineral springs in Bulgaria. In the upcoming year we will highlight our cultural monuments and promote Bulgaria as a country with a multifaceted cultural past.”

Reviewed by Diana Georgieva

Q: How can we find our dream property in Bulgaria?

A: Buying a property overseas can be one of the most rewarding investments you will ever make, as long as you take it easy and approach it slowly and attentively. A recent poll revealed that 40% of Brits are actively thinking about buying overseas .

This impulse usually arises after spending your holiday at a place which you simply fall in love with – our experience has proven this many times. If you decide to buy a property in Bulgaria, make sure you visit the place at least a few times over the course of a year to get a realistic idea of life there 24/7.

Also, don’t forget to look out for all facilities that are important to you – such as shops, transport links, healthcare, etc. Here applies the well-worn (actually true) quotation that it’s all about “location, location, location”.

Most important is to trust your real estate agent who should be able to answer all your queries and guide you through the entire purchase process. They will defend your personal interests and take care of the complete transfer of the deeds, advise you on building permits and all kind of state regulations, taxes, etc.

When buying a property with Buy-Sell-Bulgaria Ltd. you will receive the utmost attention and respect of your needs and requirements, professional advice and be sure that no information will remain hidden from you!

I’m waiting for your comments and questions on e-mail: diana@eurolink-finance.com

The demand for new construction permits in Bulgaria picked up in the second quarter of the year, with Black Sea port of Varna receiving the largest number of permits, statistics board NSI said on Thursday.

The total number of building permits issued in April-June was 4.660, compared to 4.049 permits issued in the previous three months.

Varna accounted for more than 15% of all new permits - 712, followed by Burgas with 587 permits and Plovdiv with 476. Capital Sofia got 320 permits.

Permits for residential buildings totalled 2.735 for a total 1,67 million square meters of housing.

Administrative buildings permits totalled 85 for the period.

This dish used to be prepared at the Rila Monastery kitchen. Rila Monastery is one of the famous Bulgarian Visitors attractions - a monastery which has survived many attacks by the Ottoman Turks and has provided a shelter for many persecuted people.

Ingredients:

- 1 kg braised beef
- 4 medium tomatoes
- 120 g mushrooms
- 1 cup of rice
- 1 onion
- 150 g olives
- a bunch of parsley
- 2 tbs vegetable oil
- 25 g butter
- 1 tbs sugar
- 2 1/2 cups beef-stock
- black pepper, paprika and salt

How to cook:
Cut the beef into cubes or small pieces and fry in a pan with a little oil for about 5 minutes. Add the chopped onions, beef-stock and paprika, 5 minutes later add the mushrooms and rice and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, add salt, butter, 1 tbs sugar and the olives, then cook for further 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 190°C. Put the content of the pan into a baking dish and cook for about 30 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley and pepper before serving. Bon Apetit!

Villa Aqua Beach Resort in Varna is the Eastern European continuation of the tradition that started 30 years ago, in 1972, in New York with the establishment of the famous boutique hotel and restaurant The Box Tree. Villa Aqua Beach Resort is situated within 13 km of the town of Varna, in the begining of the beach resort “Golden Sands” not far from the “International Journalists house”, and 15 minutes distant from the beach. The complex has a private parking and 24-hour security guard.

“Villa Aqua” has a magnificent inner courtyard with a beautiful garden, open-air swimming pool, summer cocktail bar, jazz-club and restaurant, famous with its unique cuisine. Restaurant “The Box Tree” is a member of the “Chaine des rotisseurs” and offers remarkable French and Bulgarian traditional dishes.

“Villa Aqua” restaurant offers opportunities for unforgettable evenings, business and private celebrations, corporate events, far from the sounds of the trivial round.

Rating 9/10

In the very first years following the Liberation of the country, the Orthodox Bulgarian population in Varna increased rapidly. To confirm their close ties with Russian Orthodox faith and to manifest their separation from Greek Patriarchate, on his first visit to the town prince Dondukov-Korsakov was invited by the local municipality members to attend the official religious service at the Bulgarian St. Archangel Mikhail church. He was, however, disappointed with the state of the temple and declared that the town deserved an impressive church, the only one of its kind in the country. And he was ready to help. Soon a committee was elected and its task was to choose the place and raise the funds for the construction. Funds were raised through donations, lottery and a government loan. The town’s surrounding area offered building materials - hewn stones in good shape from the already ruined fortress were used in the construction process. Copper sheet plates from England, supplied by Velichko Hristov, were used for the roof of the church. Two lifting cranes for the heavy stone blocks were also shipped from England.

READ MORE »