Investors waiting in the wings to snap up city buy-to-lets in Bulgaria will be encouraged by signs that prices could be leveling out, bringing the time to dip into the market closer.

Prices for apartments in Bulgaria’s regional cities did fall in the third quarter of 2011 but they dropped at the lowest rate compared to previous periods since the beginning of the economic crisis, according to recent figures from the National Statistical Institute (NSI).

In terms of figures, prices fell by just 0.84 per cent compared to the previous quarter and by 6.1 per cent year-on-year. NSI data shows that the average price of an apartment in Bulgaria’s regional cities is currently €460 per square metre. In the last quarter apartments in the capital Sofia were sold for an average of €745 per square metre and in Varna €763 per square metre.

”Three years after the beginning of the crisis we see that there is a slowdown in the price drop which is now close to zero per cent compared to the previous quarters of 2011,” said Polina Stoykova at agency Bulgarian Properties. “This is a trend we expected to happen and which started in the middle of 2010.”

The accumulated nominal price decrease of apartments in the regional cities in the last 3 years is 36.45 per cent, as according to NSI data the price drop in Sofia is 41 per cent. The accumulated real decrease in prices since the beginning of the crisis is 40.8 per cent on average for the country and 45.1 per cent for Sofia.

Investors in Bulgaria are advised to use a currency specialist when buying and repatriating income from investments there. For information contact Smart Currency Exchange.

To understand the full step-by-step process to buying a property in Bulgaria, collect The Overseas Guides Company’s ‘Bulgaria Property Buying Guide’