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 Construction of blocks of flats with smaller apartments is the latest hit of the construction investors. Construction entrepreneurs prefer to invest in buildings, where bachelor's flats and small apartments of 50-70 square meters prevail. The construction market is full of huge and hard to sell apartments. While the smaller flats sell quickly and the profits are much bigger. A boom of the construction of blocks of flats has been registered this summer. 1,491 licences were issued for the period April - July. While the number of the issued construction permits for the whole 2004 was 5,780.

The investors hurry to invest money in construction, because they expect a price shock of the real estates after Bulgaria's EU membership. The favorable bank credits incite the investors take loans and invest them in construction.

 Some 400 mln euro have been invested over the last 2 years in Bansko, the ski resort town located some 160 km south of Bulgaria's capital Sofia, said the architecture and construction department of the municipality.

The most sought after land plots are those located around the lower end of the gondola lift.

The low-end of the asking price for sites in the resort is 80 euro/sq m.

The municipality has issued 180 building permits so far in '05.

Around 70% of them are for the construction of holiday villages.

The combined apartment inventory of these developments is expected to reach 6,000 by end-'06.

The Bulgarian Black Sea resort Golden Sands (Zlatni Pyasatsi) announced a 15-20% discount of hotel prices as of September.

Currently prices at three-star hotels start from BGN 45 per person but travellers prepared to dig deeper into their pockets can find more opulence and luxury in four-star hotels, where the lowest price per person in a double room is BGN 80. The price includes breakfast.

Bed occupancy has already towered to 100% and bookings should be made at least a week earlier, Elena Ivanova, chair of the Union of owners in the resort complex said, as cited by the Bulgarian News Agency.

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HOUSING prices in Bulgaria’s regional centres rose 4.3 per cent in the second quarter of 2005 compared to the first quarter.
The average price for real estate stood at 730.5 leva per sq m between April and June, up from 700.5 leva the previous quarter, the National Statistical Institute said on July 21.
Apartment prices were the highest in the Black Sea city of Varna. Sofia, where housing prices traditionally have been the highest, came second with a 2.5 per cent increase.

IT WAS a Thursday. I got a last-minute offer of a holiday. I texted all my pals - what's Bulgaria like?

Silence. No one knew anything about Bulgaria, although it turned out that one of our editors had been there 20 years ago, but he hadn't been allowed to talk to anyone as it was still under communist rule, so he wasn't much use either.

The town of Samokov, located near the resort of Borovets in the Rila Mountain, is planning to build a 17-kilometer road, to be funded by European funds.

It will be a shortcut between the village of Gutsal and Samokov and will serve as a roundabout road to the resort of Borovets, mayor Anguel Nikolov announced.

Currently the whole traffic from Southeastern Bulgaria to the town of Plovdiv crosses the center of the resort.

Property for sale in Borovets

BOROVETS is home to the first and most famous Bulgarian mountain resorts. Only 73km, and less than 50 minutes away from Sofia, the village sits at an altitude of 1350 metres at the base of Mt Moussala (2925m), the highest peak on the Balkan peninsula.

BANSKO is the place to be for music this summer in Bulgaria. Following hot on the heels of this weekend's July Evening Disco Rock Concert, is the eighth International Bansko Jazz Festival. From August 8 to 14, the mountain town will host bands from across Europe. The festival has several aims, say it's organisers: to bring jazz "the music of the free people" to the public, to provide a stage for talented Bulgarian musicians, and to show the "summer charm" of the beautiful, ancient town of Bansko, more usually known in its winter incarnation as a ski-resort.

The world's largest Kempinski Hotel opened this weekend in Golden Sands, a posh Bulgarian resort on the Black Sea side.

More than 600 high-profile persons enjoyed the opening party of the Kempinski Hotel Grand Hermitage. Live performances by the Anguel Zebarski quartet and jazz pros Vassil Petrov and Hilda Kazasyan added to the high spirits.

Grand Hermitage, rising on a hill with a breath-taking view over the sea, has 730 rooms. Almost half of those are already providing comfort and relaxation to international tourists.

Bulgaria is to introduce a unified tourism register by the end of 2006, Head of Tourism Agency Biser Yalamov announced Friday.

Currently the agency's register features over 450 hotels of 2-star quality or higher. Another 100 hotels have applied for receiving a quality category, it became clear.

State and branch representatives from the tourism sector joined the Friday Open Doors initiative in Golden Sands Black Sea resort.

They discussed up-to-date problems, concerning resorts' services quality. It emerged that according to statistics most frequently foreign tourists complain about the noise at the restaurants, as well as about the streets being overcrowded with cars and stalls.