Boom To Bust! The 'merry Dance' Of The Bulgarian Property Market!

The merry dance became increasingly frenetic as it reached its climax like a BULGARIAN horo (wedding dance!) and when the music stopped Investors and Developers fell to the floor exhausted bringing Bansko and Sunny Beach down with them.

The problem about the BULGARIAN property market, and by this I mainly refer to off-plan developments, was that buyers heard only what they wanted to hear from the plethora of agents who were only too happy to oblige by indulging their clients.

Apartments were churned out to fit the average budget of what were predominantly UK and Irish buyers rather than the needs of the local market or long term sustainable development in leisure and tourism.

Off-plan property sales were commoditised to meet the expectations of buyers surfing the wave of a massive web marketing machine. Shiny CGIs (computer generated images) and call centres with free phone numbers and agents on massive percentages colluding to allow the UK/IRE investor to buy in to the fantasy!

Inventors buying online, sight unseen, lest the first pot-hole or fragrant taxi driver shatter the illusion of their entitlement to massive and instant capital growth! Thus the dance wound its merry way along the yellow brick road to the peaks of Pirin and the cliffs of Balchik!

Developers believed they could sell anything, in fact for a while it seemed they did just that with buyers believing that they could purchase just about anything and it would turn them a handsome profit! Of course that nice sales guy at the Milton Keynes call-centre told me Bansko is the next Austria and Sunny Beach is the new Spain right?

Of course the investors do not escape without responsibility as many seemed to leave basic common sense and principles of sound investment in a locker at Terminal 5!

In the long run, sadly, both sides have been left rather disillusioned with their respective dance partners. Their eyes met across ballroom Bulgaria, lit by the alluring sparkle of the glitter ball promising money and quick returns, like many a popular Chalga song! All financed on the back of easy credit and a solid mortgage in an eternally appreciating property market!

The fall out is a negative FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) outcome for BULGARIA all at the expense of short term speculation and greed. BULGARIA could have managed and controlled its development by coordinating and planning in line with underlying demographics for the benefit of long term development of tourism and infrastructure on accession to the EU and a wealth of funding.

Of course in reality vested political interests, short-termism, localised corruption and an endemic lack of vision prevailed over the real chance to put BULGARIA on the map of Europe as a quality tourist destination specialising in Eco, viticultural and spa tourism. This has been lost or delayed and made far more difficult as BULGARIA now needs to re-brand and change its image, which I fear will be a long overdue but all too slow and painful process.

In the short term many investors have more chance of realising a return on their investment than they do of seeing a waitress in Sofia bringing the ketchup, with a smile before she serves the desert or of seeing a brand new black SUV stop at a crossing for a babushka!