Bulgaria’s third biggest city Plovdiv turned out to be the record-breaker in property price increases in 2007, international real estate bureau Europolis said.

Prices in the city went up by 46.5 per cent between January and December 2007, while the average increase in the county was 30 per cent, Dnevnik daily said.

The value of two-bedroom apartments in the central part of the city increased the most, by 66 per cent. Shop rents in the same area reached 1000 euro a sq m.

Daniela Dimitrova, manager of Europolis’s office in Bulgaria, said that the rate of property price increases in 2008 was expected to be slower than in 2007. Still, it was unclear how the market would respond to the new tax evaluation of properties.

Lately, investor interest was withdrawing from the Black Sea and mountain resorts and focusing on smaller settlements with mineral water springs, according to research by Europolis.