Bulgaria Property Index

[Everybody's Bulgaria]

A few notes about the Statistical Data used for compiling the Bulgaria Property Index

The Bulgaria Property Index is compiled using variety of sources both online and off-line. While it is presumed that an accurate data should be available at the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria (http://www.nsi.bg), the data provided there is far from being complete and reflecting the real market situation.

The lack of accuracy is reflected in the following:

- Data about the property market is being collected from government only resources. The files of the government organizations in Bulgaria are notorious for their inaccuracy and incompleteness. A good example could be that, for instance, prices of properties reflected in the title deeds are far from returning the real market value, as the law in Bulgaria allows for the so called “Tax Estimation Value” to be declared in the deeds.
- Furthermore, in Bulgaria there are several other forms of ownership proves, other than title deeds. Those are so diverse, and the data for them is kept in different government institutions. Those institutions fail to submit statistics quite often, and there are even periods of years where such data is missing.
- The methodology and definition of “property” used by the NSI is quite questionable, as for instance the so called “summer kitchens” are classed as separate properties, although they are almost 100% part of another property.


For the purposes of presenting as accurate as possible data we use data also from the biggest online property portal in Bulgaria, as well as statistics from sources like the Balkan Consultancy Center, big banks like UniCredit Bulbank, Bulgarian National Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – EBRD, the two largest Bulgarian property magazines – Imot and Index Imoti, specialized business publications by www.economedia.bg, part until recently of the Verlagsguppe Handelsblatt GmbH, Germany.

As a result of the lack of a central source of information, the data we provide cannot be guaranteed to be 100% accurate also. However, we believe it is much more reliable than data provided by the NSI alone, as it is analyzed and cross- referenced to other sources that contain much more reliable, real time market data.