Bansko resort opens summer season reports BulgariaInside.
The Mayor of the town - Alexander Kravarov discovered that “Over-construction is another major obstacle”. Guess who issued the permissions for it? After being the “good guy” in the previous mandate after his re-election the famous Mayor decided to play the “bad guy” while Bansko is getting uglier and uglier. Constantly ongoing construction works will not attract many tourist and for sure will not make those who visited the town to come back. Apart from the construction works the infrastructure is still in a very “strange” status which in itself is another reason for big disappointment in the tourists.
Recent rumours about the bankruptcy of one of the banks in Bulgaria - First Investment Bank made lots of their clients to withdraw their savings from the bank and to close accounts.
As a reply the Executive Director Ms. Maya Georgieva said that “who believes in rumours should take his money back”. Lady, every schoolboy knows that you do not have all their money. I am not sure what the situation is, but if you continue with such statements you might successfully bankrput the bank… Good luck!
Poligraphic services buildings in Sofia to become class A offices states recent article published at propertywisebulgaria.com.
Being around this part of Sofia (Dimitar Blagoev Printing House) almost every day it is not hard to notice how “easy” is to access it by car. Bringing another 241 cars in the area (at least) will make the things even worse and the experience from going to work there will not be so much “class A”.
It is strange why the Municipality of Sofia and its Chief Architect still allow such developments but probably the reasons for this should be looked somewhere else. No wonder why the city is empty on all holidays - one hour driving during the working days can make you want to disappear from here at first possible chance. At the same time instead of improving the traffic and trying to make the citizens and visitors of Sofia happy the local authorities are allowing building on every possible space.
I am writing this further to a recent comment on another post related to buying process in Bulgaria.
In fact the Off Plan Survival Guide was written some time ago but I would like to point your attention to it as it is a good starting point for investment in Bulgaria.
In any case the first two points from it are very important:
1. Use a lawyer! This is the most important step. Do not use the lawyer recommended by the estate agent. Search on the internet for lawyers or ask a friend but do not even think of buying property without a lawyer.
2. Do not pay any reservation fee, deposits or other advanced payments without making sure that you will get a full refund in case that for whatever reason you decide later on not to buy. It is good also any such documents to be reviewed by a lawyer before you commit.
Inexperienced investors and incompetent local authorities are the reason for the fiasco in the real estate sales in some resorts in Bulgaria according to the chief of UniCredit Bulbank Levon Hampartzoumian.
The person with hardly pronounceable name believes that most of the popular resorts will suffer difficulties which will reflect also on the Banks that financed the projects. In the same line of thoughts it can be said that if there was not enough funding then this fiasco would not happen, which means that the “competent” bankers should line up with the investors and municipal administration.
A recent article in Capital newspaper discusses the reasons that led to decrease in real estate sales in the last year. It is not a secret that after the initial boom currently there are about 20 000 apartments for sale in Bansko and over 200 000 on the Black Sea. Their number is increasing every day while the sales are going down more and more.
Funnily, one of the companies that contributed the most for this – BulgarianProperties is asked to analyse the situation explain it with the mass overbuilding in the main resorts. However, it was BulgarianProperties who were selling off-plan properties so off the plan that some never materialised and this customer’s attitude is one of the main reasons for the mass decrease in sales. There are too many stories of “successful investments” recently.
The main conclusion of the article is that currently the supply is exceeding dramatically the demand for properties in Bulgaria and now especially after the crisis on the real estate market in USA probably it is not so wise to invest in real estates. It is again no secret that most of the projects are built with financing from Banks and for their repayment the developers rely entirely on the sales so soon the bubble will start to shrink. Who is about to be caught inside? We’ll see…
Translation of this wise thought. There is lot of truth about Bulgarian way of making fun.
6 November 2007 – 6:22 pm
As you can imagine the winner is… mafia which tightens the grip. In the case with Bansko and the surrounding areas the “good” old mayors remain the same. One can easily see how much money are invested and about to be invested in the area so there is no interest to play “free” elections.
Since everyone is aware that very few buildings in Bansko are built legally here is the big surprise for those who believed that the law rules in Bulgaria.
Below you will find a scanned document issued by the highest authority in Bulgaria dealing with construction, the National Directorate of Building Supervision, issued on 26 July 2007.
The project for which it has been issued is Bansko Royal Towers.
What you will note is that there is obviously something wrong with this. Although issued by the authority that should monitor and ensure that all construction works in Bulgaria are done properly, this one certifies that a building, which is far away from completion is somehow suitable for living…
The point of this writing is that you should not believe to most of the documents issued in Bulgaria. It is sad but persons like the one signed this document make the whole world laugh at us. There is no other word that can better describe the situation apart from corruption.
Just saw that there is a link in the forum for sale of a project in Razlog
http://pine-valley-apts.com/
It seems that Razlog is becoming the leader in fast investments. Soon they might start selling projects who even hardly exist.
