A total of 40.5% of all 525,000 apartments in Sofia have only one bedroom, experts said at the Balkan Real Estate Conference, which was held in Sofia.

Another 32.2% of the apartments have two bedrooms, while studios account for 17.6% of all apartments.

“Address” data shows that the average house prices in the past two years (2004-2006) grew 203%. Katya Tzenova, CEO of Address, said that in the end of 2004 the average price was 216 euros/sq m, in the end of last year it was already 656 euros/sq meter.

According to Tzenova the main factor for the registered price increase were higher incomes of the Bulgarians.

House prices in Bulgaria currently vary between 700 and 2800 leva/sq m, while rents vary from 5.8 to 7.2 euros/sq m.

David Ericsson, managing director of Capital Investment & Consultancy Ltd said that big international companies have been entering the Serbian market for the past couple of years.
House prices their were between 1,500 and 2,500 euros/sq m, while the average rent was 11.2 euros/sq meter. According to official data of the Serbian statistics, there are 553,307 apartments in Belgrad.

“House prices last year alone grew 20%”, Otis Spencer, fund manager of Heitman, said.
The price range for apartments is 900 to 1,850 euros/sq m. Demand of around 10,000 units is expected on the market by 2010.