Greece & Bulgaria offer superb property bargains

Greece’s economic problems may be well documented, but the country’s woes offer opportunities for overseas investors looking to buy property in the Southern European nation.  Similarly, prices in Bulgaria have also slumped since the pre-credit crunch levels, offering bargains to overseas property investors.

It is possible to pick up a bargain property in both countries, as our guide explains.

Property in Bulgaria hit hard by economic crisis

Turkish Weekly reports that ‘throughout Southeast Europe, property owners are playing a similar game – hoping that prices begin to return this year to their pre-2008 levels, when the global housing bubble began to pop and sent economies crashing around the world.’

Bulgaria has been hit hard by the economic crisis.  The housing market in the country had boomed in the early to mid 2000s, but times have been hard since the credit crunch.  Prices of apartments in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, have fallen by 40 per cent since 2008 according to Polina Stoykova, chief operations manager of the Sofia-based real estate agency Bulgarian Properties Ltd.

She said: “The year 2009 was the most stressful.  In 2010, it looked as if things were somehow returning to normal. But 2011 was controversial."

While sale volumes increased in early 2011, the debt crisis across Europe slowed down the Bulgarian property market in the second half of the year.

Greece one of the few places where a seaside home remains affordable

Prices of properties in Greece have fallen by 14 per cent, back to the levels of 2005 when the country was experiencing a post-Olympic boom.  And, it’s only the high level of home ownership in Greece that has prevented the price falls being more significant.

However, foreign interest in Greece remains high.  Ioanna Plakokefalou, general manager of Hellenic Realty said: "Foreign interest in Greek property is as strong as ever.

"In previous decades, it was Germans and Britons who had the buying power, but in the past five months, I've been contacted by interested parties from Russia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Israel.”

She adds:  "Greece is one of the few places in Europe where a dream house by the sea is still affordable."

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