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Sofia and Burgas start the year with historic peak of property transactions
Completed property transactions in Sofia and Burgas in the first quarter of this year are at their highest level in at least 20 years, as long as data are available on the website of the Registry Agency. In Sofia they crossed the 8,000 transactions threshold in the first quarter for only the second time since 2005. The first time this happened was in 2008, which was followed by a property market crash.
Last year, property transactions in the country's major cities, as well as in seaside and mountain resorts, predominantly rose after about a year and a half of decline, while nationally listed transactions mostly declined. At the start of this year, transactions at the national level also returned to modest growth, although they still remain below the level of early 2022 - when the year started strongly for the market, but after the start of the war in Ukraine, growth stalled in the second quarter, followed by five quarters of across-the-board decline.
Sofia was the leader among the country's major cities in terms of growth in completed property transactions in the first quarter with 17.7%. Between January and March, 8,588 transactions were listed in the capital, well above the 8,035 in the first quarter of 2008. Nearly 60% of the transactions were financed with a mortgage loan, according to Investor.bg's calculations based on the data of the Registry Agency. In the first quarter, 5,062 legal and contractual mortgages were registered in the capital, which is 13.1% more than in the same period last year.
The year has also started on a high note for the property market in Burgas region, where between January and March 1,837 property transactions were registered, also the highest level in at least 20 years. Just over 41% of transactions in the seaside town were financed with a mortgage loan, while the number of registered legal and contractual mortgages rose by 18.6% year-on-year.
At the opposite pole is Varna district, where the year has started slower in terms of recorded property transactions. In the first quarter they were 3,099, down 2.1% year-on-year. At the same time, lending in terms of the number of registered legal and contractual mortgages in the maritime capital continues to grow. Between January and March, the increase was 9.6%, and for nearly 40% of registered property transactions in the city, buyers have resorted to bank financing.
In Plovdiv region, 3,482 property transactions were completed in the first quarter, up 3.5% year-on-year, but still one-and-a-half percentage points below 2022 levels. Plovdiv also fits in the trend of growth in the number of mortgage loans registered, as it reached 9.1% between January and March. 37% of recorded property transactions in the city were financed with a mortgage loan.
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