Official-data market briefing · 2026 Q1/Q2

Bulgarian residential property: price resilience meets weaker liquidity

Residential prices and housing credit continued to expand strongly, but transaction activity weakened materially. The divergence points to resilient pricing alongside narrower liquidity.

Published 16 August 2026 · Reporting cut-off 15 August 2026 · 8 min read

HPI +14.8% YoYTransactions −18.5% YoYHousing credit +26.4% YoYConstruction costs +14.0% YoY

Seven latest official Bulgarian residential market signals — Latest official indicators use different reporting periods. Sources: NSI and ECB.

Market reading: prices are resilient, but breadth has weakened

Bulgaria’s HPI increased 14.8% year on year in 2026 Q1, but the number of dwelling transactions declined 18.5%. Aggregate transaction value also fell, although its 5.0% decline was considerably smaller than the fall in transaction count.

This is consistent with a less liquid market in which the value of completed activity is holding up better than transaction volume. The indicators imply a 16.6% rise in value per transaction, but this is a derived mix/value proxy—not an observed average sale price or €/m².

House prices, transaction count and transaction value annual growth — Price strength is not currently being confirmed by broader transaction participation. Source: NSI.

Geography matters

All six NUTS2 regions recorded positive annual HPI growth in 2026 Q1, but city results were more dispersed. Burgas led the six published cities at 17.7%, followed by Sofia at 16.0% and Varna at 13.2%. Ruse was the exception at −5.8%.

Transaction indicators reveal a different hierarchy. Plovdiv was comparatively resilient, while Burgas and Varna recorded much sharper declines in both transaction count and aggregate value.

Annual house price growth by city — Latest annual HPI growth by city. Source: NSI.

City transaction count and value positioning — Latest city transaction position. Source: NSI.

Credit supports demand; costs constrain delivery

Outstanding housing-loan stock reached €18.68bn in June 2026, up 26.4% year on year, while the new-housing-loan rate stood at 2.41%. Strong credit expansion remains supportive, but it also raises the importance of monitoring lending growth and future rate changes.

Preliminary 2026 Q2 data recorded 11,499 dwellings permitted, 8,913 started and 5,932 completed. These are separate quarterly market stages, not tracked project cohorts. Total construction costs also rose 14.0% year on year, so a larger potential pipeline is operating under continued development pressure.

Permitted started and completed dwellings — Residential supply stages. Source: NSI.

What to monitor next

Transaction breadth: whether counts recover while HPI remains positive.
Credit transmission: whether loan growth remains above 20%.
Pipeline delivery: whether elevated permits are followed by starts and completions.
Cost pressure: whether material and total cost growth ease.
Regional balance: whether city liquidity divergence persists.

Method note. HPI measures transaction-price movement, not average prices or €/m². Missing or confidential observations remain blank. Latest periods differ by source and several observations are preliminary.

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