Sunny Beach, Ravda, Nessebar, and St Vlas – More vendors in many more complexes - 2013 summer report.

The summer of 2013 has been buoyant so far for our Sunny Beach region vendors; although prices are not up, transactions are completing at healthy rates and approximately 15% more sales are being achieved than last year. In most cases market prices are consistent with those of 2012, where they are not they are only down by 5-7%, but not more.

The greatest move in the marketplace has come from a change in vendor patterns causing a shift in the types of available property stock.  For example; in 2012 we found that the adjoined complexes of Nessebar Fort, Holiday Fort Club and Nessebar Golf presented one of the best and only sources of 1 bedroom apartments for under 25,000 Euros. Buyers with this requirement and budget would struggle to find better cheaper options elsewhere in Sunny Beach and as such this presented their best option for the price. However, in 2013 we are finding far a greater variety of complexes present similar offers for resale, thus providing buyers with an almost confusing amount of highly varied choice. Previously we found a dozen or so vendors in any 2-3 complexes who would all list with us to sell their Bulgarian properties, but this year we tend to find a dozen vendors in a dozen different complexes.

This greater assortment generally results in a longer sales process as there is more to consider with greater variables to assess. The same one buyer still buys one property, so ultimately the economic outcome is no different, but the time and marketing costs to present all the options and the competition between rival offers has increased considerably. For this same price range buyers can now consider not only these Fort Noks complexes but also many superior in the preferred more central areas of Sunny Beach, those closer to the water, towards St Vlas or Cacao Beach.

From the agent’s perspective we can see that this massive variance has reduced the chances for some vendors to sell. The marketing budgets of agencies tend to reflect the volume of stock they have available in any one complex, as such a dozen vendors in a complex will benefit from their self-created economy of scale; the agent can be more certain of getting a return from their invested marketing as a serious buyer will buy one or another of the many available in that building from them, thus they pump extra money into its general exposure. However, with vendors now spread across so many different complexes, the same nominal marketing budgets have become equally applied across a wider spectrum of different complexes. This has resulted in a reduced rate of sales in some complexes where individual vendors where previously and unknowingly part of large groups of vendors, previously covered by the same heavy blanket marketing which has now been diluted.

More choice results in a longer selling period as the agents work longer to show the different available options, furthermore then greater the choice the harder the decision for the buyers and the longer it takes them to come to a conclusion. The more time the buyers have to ponder, the less likely they are to decide and the greater the risk they are pulled away from their decision to buy by external factors.

Overall, we are finding that the selling process is now comparatively prolonged and snap decisions from buyers are less frequent, bigger variance in the complex types and choices results in buyers coming to view physically much more frequently, which is reflected in the distinct reduction of internet sales and online deposits placed.