About 38 per cent of property sellers in Bulgaria have updated prices every two weeks and 12 per cent every week in the six months of 2009, according to a new report by local real estate agency Address.

The study revealed that 38 per cent of those trying to offload properties are feeling the pinch of the economic crisis.

"Prices have collapsed by an average of 23 per cent in the first half of 2009 and even more than 30 per cent in some big-city regions," said Tsvetelina Taseva, executive director of Address.

Average selling prices in Sofia have tumbled by 22.19 per cent year-on-year from January to June, 21.9 per cent in the coastal city of Varna, 19 per cent in Bourgas, also at the Black Sea, and 18.7 per cent in the second largest city of Plovdiv. The decline is poised to continue until the end of the year but at a slower pace of up to 10-15 per cent, the report predicts.

Property consultants Colliers said a week ago the coming months should see the first signs of stabilisation of the housing segment.

The crisis has also shrunk the once-booming off-plan properties market, with transactions there making only 20 per cent of all in the first half of the year, Address estimated. The downtrend is expected to deepen.

Figures of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) showed that new construction plummeted by a precipitous 42.8 per cent in the six months up to June compared with a year before. Not a single building was completed in Stara Zagora and Kyustendil regions over the period.

Source: Dnevnik.bg