22.01.2007 SOFIA OFFERS CHEAPEST RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY IN EUROPE

BULGARIAN PROPERTIES

There is only one European capital where residential property is cheaper than in Bulgaria's Sofia - Moldova's capital Chisinau. A square metre of residential property in Chisinau could be bought for 917 euro, while in Bulgaria the price is 1042 a sq m. The data is taken from a research made by Global Property Guide, a real estate analysis website.

According to the research rental prices in Sofia are the lowest compared to the prices in other 40 European capitals.

Among neighbouring countries the most expensive is Turkey, where selling prices of apartments in Istanbul are about 2467 euro a sq m. Turkey is followed by Romania's Bucharest ( 2350 euro a sq m).

Bucharest' residential property selling prices exceed those in Brussels (2150 euro a sq m) and Athens (1833 euro a sq m).

Europe's most expensive capitals are Monaco where a sq m of luxury apartment could be bought for no less than 24 900 euro.

In Prime London prices of luxury property is about 14 522 euro.

However, Sofia is among the capitals with the highest yields in Europe - 10.56 per cent. Only yields Chisinau (14,13 per cent) and Warsaw (13,28 per cent) are higher. Because rental returns depend on risk to some extend, Europe's high yielding countries are in the east, Global Property Guide said. Other factors for high rental returns in a particular country are relatively recent arrival of the market economy, high interest rates and relatively underdeveloped mortgage markets.

Global Property Guide shares its concern about the fact that nowhere in Europe rents are keeping pace with the constantly increasing property prices. Rental returns about or below 4 per cent is considered to be "a danger signal". At the moment rental income return on apartment in Madrid is 3.15 per cent.

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