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.”