Land, Parcels, Plots in Bulgaria

Welcome to Bulgaria-Land.co.uk, the only web site dedicated to selling land in Bulgaria - agricultural land,building plots, development land, industrial area plots, etc. If you don’t find what you are looking for just Contact Us, and we will do our best to find the piece of land you are looking for.

There are many large international developers, who buy plots in and around the big cities – Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv and Burgas, close to the Black Sea coast and development plots in the mountains, close to the Bulgarian ski resorts as well as agricultural land. In addition, there are many private investors who realised, that investing in Bulgarian land is the best option in term of capital gain and worry-free investment in Bulgaria.

Because there is no other investment in Bulgaria, who can bring you better and faster return. There are numerous occasion, when the price of land in Bulgaria more then doubles within 1 year! The price of some plots in Sofia and around the Black Sea coast increased more then 10 times within the last 5 years. Have you heard of such capital gain by people investing in houses or apartments in Bulgaria?

You will hear, that the land in Bulgaria is generally talked about as ‘regulated’ or ‘unregulated’, ‘agricultural’ being part of the ‘unregulated’. Probably you heard a lot of conflicting information of how that land is classified and what it means. Typically you can not build on ‘unregulated land’ but you can on ‘regulated’. The terms ‘unregulated’ means that the local authorities had not marked the land for development, but going to a legal process, the status of ‘unregulated land’ can be converted to ‘regulated’. This process might take up a year to complete and you will never be 100sure if the process will complete successfully. But having the right legal team and with our help we can bring the risk to a minimum. On the other hand we will never sell you a piece of land in Bulgaria without explaining all this and advise you on the best possible routes.

Because of the price difference, a piece of land in Bulgaria, which has the status of ‘unregulated’ can be a few times cheaper then the same piece, once it changes its status to ‘regulated’. Generally if the piece of land is in a town or village, it is ‘regulated’ and you can build on it. There are many other pieces of land in Bulgaria, which status can be easily changed to ‘regulated’. It is only the land in and around Sofia, Varna, Burgas and the ones close to the Black Sea coast, which carry some questions in regards of changing the status of the land. Discuss this point with your solicitor to ensure that the whole legal process has been explained to you and you have been given a clear idea of all the details.

We will help you in every step of the purchasing process. Right at the start to locate suitable pieces of land for you, through the viewing, thoroughly checking the plans of the local authorities for this land and how likely and easy it is to change status, setting up a company in Bulgaria and organising the Notary signing, which will make you the owner of Bulgarian land. But wait, our role is not going to stop there. If you purchase the land and you wish to develop it, we can provide complete project management, architectural drawings, supervision and control, marketing and sales off-plan to our customers.

On many occasions we can help you finance your purchase of the land in Bulgaria and / or the complete development project. Some of the favourable terms include putting down as little as 20% and do not repay off anything for the first year.

Bulgarian agricultural land is often described as the most undervalued asset class in the country. How valid is this assertion?
Farmland in Bulgaria is currently 11-12 times cheaper than the EU-15 average and 2 to 5 times cheaper than its CEE4 peers.

• Bulgaria farm subsidies chart
• EU agricultural land prices chart

Despite its significant undervaluation in relative terms, this is not sufficient to prompt land price convergence. The expected fast appreciation of agricultural land in Bulgaria and its gradual convergence to EU average levels will be propelled by several factors connected with the county's entry into the EU and developments on the international markets for agricultural commodities in general, driven by fast economic growth in China and India, high energy prices and economic impact of global warming. These factors will greatly impact the agricultural sector by improving its efficiency and profitability.

The EU will benefit Bulgarian agricultural sector in several direct ways:

• Access to a highly protected from external competition market for agricultural products (Fortress Europe);
• Significant agricultural subsidies in the form of EU direct payments plus top-up national direct payments- 2007 total: EUR 450 million or a total of EUR 10 per Dekar or roughly 10percents on current land prices;
• Additional agricultural support through minimum intervention prices in key crops, effectively setting a floor on agricultural prices;
• Improved competitiveness on international markets through additional export subsidies;
• Tax-breaks and tax-incentives for production of bio-fuel crops and wind farm construction;
• Preferential terms for financing, leasing and mortgaging of assets;
• Inflow of foreign capital and know-how.

The global factors aiding agricultural business in general can be summed up under the following points:

• Beginning of a sharp, long and secular rise in prices of soft commodities, driven by
• Strong demand from China & India,where rising living standards lead to higher meat and hence cereal consumption;
• Dwindling global grain reserves
• Rising demand for production of bio-fuels (ethanol, bio-diesel etc)
• Reduced land availability, as global population growth and continued urbanization have dramatically cut the agricultural land available per head;
• Glowbal warming reduces crop yields, but also has kick-started a variety of alternative energy industries (wind farms, bio-fuels, solar pannels) which use and bid up agricultural land;
• Given the very low level of wage cost in Bulgaria, the significant subsidies will dramatically improve profitability of agricultural sector. At their full level, the EU direct payments would be sufficient to cover all the run costs for crops such as corn & wheat. are significantly.

Bulgarian crop yields from hectare are significantly below EU levels, reflecting years of absence of any investment in the sector, inferior know-how, technology and machinery, lack of access to the lucrative European market and low prices of agricultural commodities on the international market. Many of these factors are changing now in favor of the agricultural sector.

Despite the considerably lower yields per hectare, due land prices which stand at 5-8percents level from Western European levels, the returns from agricultural business per unit of land is higher by a magnitude of 50percents. Calculations also assume, equal level of run costs set at Bulgarian level, which tends to understate the return gap / differential. The calculations exclude the EU subsidies which would boost higher returns (in the case of Bulgaria by 10 percents).