The number of unoccupied offices in Sofia is growing because of a lack of demand, Bulgarian-language mass-circulation daily Trud said in a report on August 19 2009.
 
At the end of June 2009, about 15 per cent of offices in Bulgaria’s capital city were vacant, the newspaper said.
 
The same day, Trud said that Irish people were selling their real estate in Bulgaria at prices reduced by 20 to 50 per cent, while in counterpoint, another newspaper reported that a foreign financial institution was buying up flats in Sofia.
 
Quoting National Association of Housing Construction Companies president Plamen Belinski, Novinar said that the foreign financial institution wanted to buy at least 3000 flats.
 
A day earlier, it was reported that the number of real estate transactions in Sofia had fallen by 58 per cent since the beginning of 2009, while the number of mortgages had decreased by two-thirds.
 
On August 10, Dnevnik said that real estate deals in Bulgaria had fallen 35 per cent year-on-year, according to Registry Agency figures.
 
The downtrend had swept over all major cities as well as seaside resorts, with Sofia, Varna and Samokov region including the upscale winer resort of Borovets collapsing by about 50 per cent.
 
Brokers put the finger of blame on flagging investment activity and the credit squeeze, Dnevnik said.
 
The previous week, Raiffeisen Real Estate said that property deals have shed an average of 42 per cent nationwide and a formidable 58 per cent in Sofia in the first half of 2009.