Desperate Property Developers Woo Municipality in Bulgaria's Plovdiv

Plovdiv's eccentric mayor and prominent businessman Slavcho Atanasov is expected to save local property developers from the collapse of the real estate market. File photo

Property developers in Bulgaria's southern city of Plovdiv are hoping that the municipality will buy out their brand-new flats that nobody is interested in, local papers report.

Some 500 newly-completed apartments are on sale in Plovdiv but there are no potential buyers in sight, according to the Maritsa daily, which is why the local construction businessmen are trying to lure Plovdiv Mayor Slavcho Atanasov to buy out the properties.

The situation in Plovdiv is in line with the general state of the Bulgarian property market which was devastated by the effects of the economic crisis, with real estate prices continuing to drop ever since 2008, after Bulgaria's pre-crisis construction boom.

The Plovdiv Municipality has recently started a campaign to sell its outdated panel-block construction apartments from the communist era to their tenants, and plans to use the revenues to purchase 100 brand-new flats to order to provide housing to families in need, Atanasov himself has confirmed.  

The local construction sector has already offered the municipality to buy out their empty new flats as part of its housing policy.

Mayor Atanasov, however, is quoted as saying that the municipality has asked the local construction chamber to draft a mechanism to allow it to get lower prices because of the intended "wholesale" purchase of apartments.

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