"If it gets clearer at the end of this year whether prices and sales volume in the real estate sector have hit rock bottom, fresh opportunities will open up for investors to re-enter the market of immovables in Bulgaria," Colliers International Executive Director Atanas Garov told a news conference here on Wednesday.

By mid-year there are indications that real estate supply and demand are starting to balance off. No transactions are effected on the investment market, but this is expected to change in the third quarter.

Year-on-year, the average offer prices of residential properties have dropped 14 per cent, which experts see as an indication that the steepest price decrease was in the first half of 2009.

Rents declined 18 per cent. In the second half of 2009, residential prices are expected to continue to decline at a moderate pace, reaching the bottom at the end of this and the beginning of next year, when they will level.

In the office space market, the volume of vacant spaces rose from 7-8 per cent a year ago to 13-14 per cent at present. Experts expect another 100,000-120,000 sq m of office space to enter the market until the end of the year, which will exert further pressure on supply, unless demand revives fast. Foreign companies planning to move their operations to Bulgaria are expected to show heightened interest in office space.

In business space, as the projects shelved outnumber those planned for launch in early 2010, landlords are not expected to cut rental charges too generously.

The volume of industrial logistic space reached 1,280,000 sq m in the first half of 2009. It is ever more difficult to obtain bank credit for financing of logistic space for which no tenants have been contracted in advance.

Source: BTA