Southern Sofia continues to attract the majority of real estate buyers, according to data of the Bulgarian-language real estate news website imoti.bg. The luxury neighbourhoods of Boyana, Dragalevsti and Simeonovo, all in the outskirts of Mount Vitosha, are maintaining their high prices. This is the reason the demand for property in these areas is mainly aimed towards small and medium-sized apartments. Imoti.bg’s data shows that there has been an increase in demand for one-bedroom apartments in the neighbourhoods of Belite Brezi, Gotse Delchev and Borovo, from 20 per cent to 29 per cent in the first quarter of 2007. The prices for which one-bedroom apartments are offered in Belite Brezi have gone up by 22 per cent, in Borovo by 19 per cent and in Strelbishte by 10 per cent, the website’s statistics show. Despite this increase, imoti.bg real estate brokers say that there has been almost no price increase when judging from deals actually closed.

All of the neighbourhoods mentioned are situated on both sides of Sofia’s Bulgaria Boulevard, which connects the Boyana borough with the downtown at the National Palace of Culture (NDK).

For years, architects and urban development specialist have been saying that Sofia should develop to the south as oppose to the north, which is the area round the Central Railway Station. In the past, the area around Bulgaria Boulevard was kept free of industrial construction because it was very close to the homes of the ex-communist leaders of the country. This resulted in many green areas that were just waiting for the right investor to come. Exactly this has been occurring for the past 10 year, and today hundreds of newly built residential and office buildings all along Bulgaria Boulevard are waiting for buyers.

The construction boom, however, has limited big investors from buying large plots of land around Bulgaria Boulevard. The most common case is for a construction company to built no more than one residential building. Big money goes to big spaces.

Following this dictum, the UK-based Black Sea Property Fund said on April 4 that it had bought a plot of land in Sofia’s Malinova Dolina borough, next to Studentski Grad, where a residential complex is to be built, according to a fund announcement. The fund said that it had paid four million euro for 24 599 square metres. The final value of the the project is projected at 20 million euro.