Stoyan Hristov: The market needs rental properties

Stoyan Hristov is the General Manager of Vas Reserve, a real estate development company engaged in the design and construction of modern residential and commercial buildings and warehouses. Besides this, the firm also has activities into viticulture and wine production. Vas Reserve has invested in schemes like Boyana House Residence in Kinotsentara, an apartment complex with 5 luxury apartments for rent.

Bulgarian market lacks exclusive real estate for rent, something well-known in western markets for a long time. When renting out landlords are able to establish in-house regulations and make sure they are applied; they can also choose their clients carefully as well as not to allow any arbitrary changes in the home or the façade. Such properties have limited number of target clients and are very expensive, but they are still quite liquid.
There are very few areas left in Sofia, which allow the development of modern luxury properties and which have decent infrastructure and location. Wealthy clients demand free access, restricted social environment and security. When they purchases luxury properties and are thus ready to part with certain sums of money they proceed with their own tastes and requirements. This group of customers is unlikely to purchase completed product. Instead, as our professional experience shows, they would opt for designing the property according to their preferences. If not, they would at least try to participate in a certain phase of the development process.
The development of luxury properties is a continuous process - from the choice of suitable plot, through the architectural design that should meet the contemporary design and town-planning standards, to the choice of general contractor with experience with contemporary construction technologies. Therefore, in the average developments, the term "exclusive properties" is somewhat out of place.
Unfortunately, most often quality does not correspond to price. There are still quite a number of speculative players but I believe that the credit crunch has produced some beneficial effects for the market, which starts to sober down and settle.


Read more:
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Nikola Stoyanov: A luxury real estate market exists but demand is limited
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Rita Yotova and Mincho Pachikov: Clients are becoming more exacting
Arch. Vesela Miryanova: Sofia lacks symbolic residential buildings