We were in Ireland's best-selling newspaper The Sunday World yesterday. Here's the article.

DEMAND IS RISING FOR BULGARIAN PROPERTY

Irish agent, Appreciating Assets, is seeking holiday homes to cater for overseas investors Bulgarian properties urgently wanted

NOT so long ago buying an apartment in Bulgaria was as easy as buying a new TV or a suite of furniture – and they sold in their thousands to Irish investors who bought into the dream of a holiday home abroad.

Fast forward a couple of years and for many Bulgarian property owners the financial crisis had turned that dream into a costly nightmare.

Irish estate agent Dylan Cullen, witnessed it all first hand as he was working on commercial developments in Bulgaria at the time and knew many of these Irish property owners were desperately trying to sell in a collapsed market.

But in 2009 things began to change. Cullen’s local contacts began to ask if he could source Irish owned holiday homes to supply a growing stream of Russian buyers.

Since then Cullen’s Bulgarian estate agency, Appreciating Assets, has been making a name for itself helping Irish owners sell their Bulgarian investments to cash-rich Russian buyers.

With over 160 properties sold last year by their agents in Bulgaria believe that the market is now being boosted by an increase in the number of British buyers coming back to Bulgaria for holiday homes.

“There’s a real interest in Bulgarian property again, not just from Russia but also from the UK and Scandinavia,” says Cullen. “We currently require additional properties in Sofia, Bansko and the Black Sea to show at six upcoming major investment exhibitions, which are taking place in Moscow and St Petersburg between now and the end of April.” The first exhibition opens in Moscow next weekend.

Cullen points out that while property prices in Bulgaria were not immune to economic crash the level of activity remained quite steady thanks mainly to the high number of Russian investors who continue to buy property there.

While many of the Irish who bought property in Bulgaria may not have made the profits they had hoped, there is a growing trend of Irish owners selling their property in Bulgaria and using the money to buy property in Ireland they could not have afforded during the boom. "For example one of our clients recently used the proceeds from the sale of their Bulgarian property to buy an apartment in Cork for €55,000 that would have cost them €250,000 in 2007".

It could all add up to a solution for both foreign investors and Irish property owners in Bulgaria.

Appreciating Assets can be contacted through their Dublin office on 01-6141300 or visit www.appreciatingassets.ie