Bulgaria’s ‘outstanding’ growth
New figures reveal that Bulgaria’s house prices are still rising to dizzying heights…
As in the previous quarter Bulgaria has continued to see the strongest growth in house prices of the countries included in the latest Knight Frank Global House Price Index. The major findings were as follows:
- Prices for flats over the year increased by nearly 34%.
- Price growth in the last quarter of the year reached 8%
- Prices remain relatively low compared with much of Central and Eastern Europe.
- Price growth has been greatest in Vidin (North West) and Ruse (North East)
- Prices in the capital Sofia also saw significant growth during 2007.
- In each case, prices increased by over 50%.
Liam Bailey, Head of Residential Research, Knight Frank commented: “The most outstanding feature in this index in Europe is Bulgaria’s continued strong showing against the astonishing reversal of fortune witnessed in the three Baltic countries. Two of the three; Latvia and Estonia, suffered negative growth (-7.1% and -14.5% respectively) and the third, Lithuania managed price growth of just under 1%. A year ago each were high flyers in our index with 66.6%, 23.8% and 23% annualised growth rates respectively. Uncertain employment conditions, rising interest rates and household indebtedness are all identified as contributory factors in this turnaround.
