Bulgarian blow for brit buyers

Bulgaria's risk-averse banks are tightening up on mortgages for overseas investors, according to PropertywiseBulgaria.com…

Bulgarian Properties manager Nikola Stoyanov said: “One of the reasons is the sharp decline in the uptake of resort holiday homes over the last 7-8 months, caused to some extend by the pullback of British home buyers. Financial institutions have been shying away from ski resort developments in the past several months.

“In the Black Sea resorts, the exodus of British buyers was partly offset by demand from Russians, Ukrainians and buyers from Scandinavia but the deals in the ski resorts have plummeted tenfold”.

Loan financing ‘drying up’

Tihomir Toshev from Creditex, added: “It would be an overstating to say that loan-financing has completely dried up when lenders are simply being more cautious and risk aware”. Real estate consultancy Colliers International has also reported a decrease in the uptake of residential stock.

Although the banks officially reject any suggestions that they have changed their lending policy towards the real estate sector, off the record, industry sources admitted to Dnevnik that a certain pullback was happening, due mainly to the increased costs of lending in the wake of the global credit crisis and the negative trends emerging on the property market