Latest real estate news

Quoting unnamed officials at the BulgarianRussian Investment Forum as saying that Russian investors were quot;opting for partnerships with Bulgarian companies in order to start new casinos in Bulgaria quot;, Bulgarian daily Standart said the country had a quot;golden opportunity to become the Las Vegas for Russian gamblers. quot;

Projects across various sectors of Bulgarias property market are being put on hold, the main reason being the global economic crisis.The effect is not universal and some major transactions have gone ahead, including the 101.5 million euro change of hands of City Center Sofia, while new retail projects in Bulgarias smaller cities continue to be announced.

Orchid Developments, an international property developer focusing on Bulgaria, said on November 17 that it sold Yavor hotel in the Black Sea resort of Zlatni Pyassutsi for 9.9 million euro.The developer had said in September in its interim results that it expected the sale of Yavor Zlatni AD, the subsidiary company taht owns the hotel, to complete in October 2008.

Resort operator Albena, which owns the hotels, retail outlets and infrastructure in the Black Sea resort of the same name, may keep half of the rooms locked next summer to avoid operating them at a loss, Albena executive director Krassimir Stanev said.

The main investor in the new Super Borovets mega ski resort is to apply for an EMAS EcoManagement and Audit Scheme eco certificate which guarantees that all work, products and services will be done in accordance with the highest European eco standards. So far, Super Borovets is still only on the drawing board, as construction is yet to be given the goahead.

Bulgarian resort operator Albena AD has put up for sale its upscale holiday complex in Byalata Lagouna White Lagoon area, on Bulgarias northern Black Sea coast.

Two funds listed on the alternative investment market AIM of the London Stock Exchange said they would slash real estate investments in Bulgaria because of the ongoing financial crisis. Black Sea Property Fund gave up its Evergreen gated complex that it planned to build in the country, while Bulgarian Land Development BLD has slashed the number of apartments it agreed last year to buy in the Paradiso Verde 2 complex in the Bansko mountain resort.

Bulgarias holiday property market was saturated and big projects found no buyers because they were unprofitable, the managing director of Foros real estate agency Dobromir Ganev has said. Local company Terra Trans Consult has suspended a 200 million euro holiday village project in Balchik due to the severe economic conditions, the towns mayor Nikolai Angelov said. The companys Balchik Paradise complex was to deliver houses, a hotel, a spa centre, a conference hall and a cinema hall.

The global financial crunch has had its effect in the tourist resort town of Pamporovo, Bulgaria. The flats available in the numerous apartment estates recently built in the town have declined sharply in value, according to Yavlena GEOS, a real estate agency based in Smolyan, quoted by website stroitelstvo.bg. The first decline in value was observed in the hotelapartment complexes, especially in the cases where there is a larger loan taken out for their construction.

The snowballing turmoil that has frozen the global financial markets is breathing ice into Bulgarias winter resorts as well, tourism sector representatives said. It was only last year that Bulgarias top mountain resorts of Bansko and Borovets, near Sofia, and Pamporovo, in the south, enjoyed doubledigit growths in tourist numbers. But the crisis dampened new hopes and had the sector bracing up for lower levels. Hotels and apartment complexes mushrooming in the recent years are in for a cold winter.