According to a saying very popular among Bulgarians in the past, "In his life, a man must do three things: raise a child, plant a tree and build a house for his family." Nowadays this way of thinking no longer reflects the urban lifestyle – the current ratio of houses to apartments in most cities is approximately 20:80. In Sofia it has reached 10:90.
The year 2008 taught the world a bitter lesson – in economy terms, we're all in the same boat. No country is safe from the effects of a global crisis. During 2008 most players on the Bulgarian property scene were still in denial about the pending meltdown, hoping they could somehow avoid it. Now that the crisis is offcially here, what's to be expected? The property market and its various sectors will continue to change dramatically as certain crisis-related phenomena appear that we all will have to deal with.
The mortgage mafia
Is the property boom a bubble on the point of bursting? While Bulgarians fretted over this question for the past year, the global economic "downturn" became a "crisis." The question now is whether Bulgaria has managed to dodge the bullet, as many experts would have us believe. If this were so, why has the property market in 2008 been much less dynamic than it was a year earlier? And is the British pullback to blame?
THE FOREIGN FACTOR
Expect the unexpected
God is a Bulgarian. Yes, that's right: God is a Bulgarian. At least this was what everyone thought on 17 November 1993, moments after the end of the match between Bulgaria and France at Parc des Prences Stadium in Paris.
They'll come back to collect their social security benefits, to get their teeth fixed, to have us pay for serious and expensive operations, and to get new job training.
Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov on the potential return of Bulgarian expats