The statistics maintained by Credit Center for 2007 shows a boom of mortgage credits in November 2007. The penultimate month of 2007 was a strong period for the credit industry in terms of both number and size of loans.

There is an almost 11% hike in the size of the average credit compared with October. This might be explained with the rising prices of real estate, and that with the prevailing expectation that prices will continue to go up, people are buying in spite of the higher interest rates and upcoming holidays.

November was a record period in terms of volume of credits as well. According to Credit Center, there has been a 42% hike of loans compared with October to 12.8 mln leva.

Number of loans over 100,000 leva rose by more than 200%, which is again due to the rising prices in the real estate sector. A growing number and volume of mortgage credits in smaller cities has also been registered.

The experts in Credit Center had projected that the number of applications will start to decrease from mid-November on, as people know that applications take about a month to process and they will not have the cash available by the end of the year anyway. However, according to statistics, the number of inquiries has increased – by 26.4% compared with October to more than 30 per day.

Credit Center now expects activity in the sector to remain high by at least December 15.

The euro/leva proportion of mortgage credits in the country is 55/45.

CityAverage size of credit in EURProportion euro/levaSofia5114860/40Varna4356055/45Burgas3620050/50Plovdiv4364065/35Stara Zagora3143353/47Ruse2934052/48Blagoevgrad3028467/33Veliko Tarnovo3162044/56Pleven3130050/50Dobrich2677543/57Kardjali2882326/74Sliven2900052/48Yambol3120037/63

Clients by ageAge% Between 1 Nov and 30 Nov18 – 25 7,2925 – 35 56,2335 – 45 26,43Over 45 10,05

% of credit by sizeSize of credit in BGN% between 1 Nov and 30 Nov0 - 20 000 4,4620 000 - 40 00018,7540 000 - 60 0002560 000 - 80 00019,8280 000 - 100 00016,07over 100 00025,9