The law for construction at Bulgaria's Black Sea coast going into force, which had been postponed for January 1 2008, expectedly lead to the transformation of hundreds of thousands sq m of agricultural land into construction plots for expensive complexes, Dnevnik daily research showed.

The changes in the law were expected to raise prices of properties with good infrastructure near the seaside, real estate brokers said. The most significant price increase would be of first-line properties or property with a changed status.

Titan-Real Estates representative Atanas Raikov said that "the property prices will rise drastically because of a trick in the law which says that construction may continue on plots under procedure of a status change". Currently these properties were offered at 400 euro per sq m, but prices were expected to rise to 600 euro per sq m.

According to real estate agents, for some of the deals either their colleagues mislead clients that they would be allowed to construct on the plots, or political organisations behind the buyers guaranteed that the construction would be allowed, despite bans in the law.

Nessebar chef architect Valentin Dimov said that procedures to change the status of land were launched for plots near Nessebar, Obzor, Ravda and Irakli. These were huge territories and interests of investors were enormous, he said.

In Bourgas, 55 plots were under status change procedures, Dnevnik said. Some of the plots had already attracted investors' interest.

Still, nearly 70 per cent of the territories to the south of Bourgas would keep its status, but according to real estate agents, all kinds of restaurants were expected to be constructed on those plots.

In Varna status changing procedures had not been launched for more than two years after the implementation of the master plan of the city.

According to Foros real estate manager Dobromir Ganev, construction restrictions in the law would not have a negative impact on investors' interest. On the contrary, it would be positive for the market and would improve the coastal plots.

Another real estate company, ERA, said that a strong differentiation of the market was expected to follow. Prices of luxurious construction on a good location, with a good view and a developed infrastructure and communications would increase, while those of properties far from the beach on bad roads were expected to drop.