A total of 309,788 property transactions were sealed in Bulgaria last year, the NSI and Aristo agency said.

Sofia tops the chart with 40,906 deals. Next are Varna and Plovdiv with around 17,000 each. Ruse and Burgas are also in top 5 with 8,200 and 7,654 deals, respectively.

Q4 was the busiest period last year with a total of 95,000 deals, while Q1 was the slowest with just 56,000.

Five of the largest cities in Bulgaria account for 30% of all deals and Sofia accounts for 12-14%, which is less than in previous years.

In 1999 some 19% of all transactions were in the capital city Sofia and 39% in the other five cities listed in the chart.

The property markets in smaller cities have been developing rapidly in the years after 2005 and now the transactions are more equally distributed around the country.

Some 21,041 new apartments in 2,939 buildings appeared on the market last year, with a total usable area of 1.644 mln square meters.

In 2007 the number of new apartments on the market was 18,864, in 2006 the number was 13,270 and in 2005 - 12,059.

City Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 2008 Sofia 8035 10980 8866 13025 40906 Varna 3305 5003 4159 5330 17797 Plovdiv 3458 4611 3987 5031 17087 Ruse 1206 2113 2297 2584 8200 Burgas 1049 2030 2023 2552 7654 Bulgaria 56483 78408 79545 95352 309788