Bulgarian home prices will not fall in 2027, but there will be fewer sales and buyers will be more cautious. That was the forecast from speakers at the Real Estate Business Forum, organised by Imoti.net at the Inter Expo Center in Sofia. They said the market is entering a calmer, more balanced period, and neither sellers nor builders are under pressure.
Ivaylo Valchev, deputy director of retail banking at First Investment Bank (Fibank), said sales will keep falling in 2027. He called this "the new normal". In the short term, prices will level off. Over 5 to 10 years, they will keep rising.
Mortgage rates will stay stable, Valchev said, because banks set them using methods tied to low deposit rates, and Bulgarians are not in the habit of investing their savings elsewhere. In the second half of 2027, loans may get slightly dearer, by about 10 basis points, or about one-tenth of a percentage point. The main reason is a smaller share of borrowers.
Buyers are cutting their own budgets. The down payment banks require has more than doubled compared with earlier periods, and fear of inflation adds to this. Still, homes in Bulgaria remain much more affordable than in Central and Western Europe, Valchev said.
Preliminary contracts have fallen by 12% to 15%, said Georgi Shopov, chairman of the board of the National Association of Construction Entrepreneurs (NASP), managing owner of Tobo Group and honorary consul of Indonesia. The fall may hold or reach 20% fewer sales, which would bring volumes back to those of two or three years ago.
Developers have enough of their own capital and prefer to sell more slowly rather than cut prices, Shopov said. He said prices will only go up. The most sought-after homes are small two-room flats at about €200,000 to €230,000, which is the real ceiling for an average Bulgarian family.
Polina Stoykova, executive director and co-owner of the agency Bulgarian Properties, described the present stage as a rebalancing and a move to a more sustainable market after the euphoria. Listings on the resale market are 30% to 40% higher, so buyers have more choice. She does not expect prices to fall, but a gradual calming and possibly a moderate rise of under 10%.
Buyers now pay far more attention to the surroundings, maintenance fees, infrastructure and the overall concept of projects, Stoykova added. All segments have a chance.
Dr Miroslav Vladimirov, a lecturer at the Varna Institute of Economics and a board member of ERA Bulgaria EAD, presented three scenarios for the market in 2027. The base case is the most likely. Mortgage rates rise gradually by about 0.5 to 0.7 percentage points, and demand slows moderately. Sales drop to about 70,000 to 75,000 a year, while prices rise moderately.
In the least likely, optimistic scenario, rates stay as low as they are now, the fall in sales stops and demand picks up. In the risk scenario, the European Central Bank raises rates more sharply because prices of services and wages keep rising. Mortgage rates in Bulgaria then pass 3.5%, as in France between 2021 and 2023, buyers struggle to find money to buy, and sales fall.
In October we reported that property sales in Burgas had passed those of the first two quarters of 2026, but had not reached 2025 levels. Prices have mostly held steady, especially on the resale market.
Bulgaria's property market now follows the European financial cycle, Vladimirov said. He said the direction in 2027 depends more on credit terms and eurozone interest rates than on politics and local factors.