Property maintenance in Bulgaria costs 1,50 BGN per sq.m

Many people provided with new housing in recent years, find out after their accommodation that caring for the common parts of the building or complex is better to entrust to professionals, instead of the housekeeper volunteer that shows up once a month to collect the money for the power of the staircase and the elevator.

Investors in modern office buildings in holiday resorts or in residential gated communities found that the construction of the building and commissioning is only the beginning of the most difficult part of the initiative.

Then someone has to manage it, to put order in the neighborhood relations, to seek tenants for vacant apartments and offices, to take care of them, for the building, green areas, and etc.

Before 4-5 years there was new market niche and a new profession - property or facility management and status of the professional manager working for a fee.

Today despite the crisis, property management companies (property managers) in Bulgaria are dozens, as 32 of them are members of the professional Bulgarian Facility Management Association. There is also a National Association of property managers, they represent hundreds of individuals and businesses. Even at the University for Architecture, Construction and Geodesy from last year now has specialty "Facility Management".

According to the internationally adopted definition, facility management includes management of all activities that are not fundamental for a company. In Bulgaria their work is restricted to particular range of activities whose purpose is to ensure the safety and comfort of the employees in the building, typically designed for offices.

Part of the companies have a clause in their contracts, obligating them to search for and conclude contracts with tenants. Close to this activity is the operation of property management companies. They do the same thing, but in residential buildings and complexes. When it comes to holiday complexes, their obligation is to seek tenants for homes whose owners usually conclude a separate contract for this purpose.

The companies in this industry in Bulgaria are divisions of investment companies, dealing with real estate or of major construction companies. In the life of a building, only 20% of the cost is for the construction, the remaining 80% goes to keep the building in good condition.

One of the tough things when concluding a contract with such company is the determination of the price for the service. It depends on so many factors and circumstances that no company is able to offer a price list of their services. The cost is determined individually for each client.

According to a recent study of the company "Facility Consulting Group", included 33 companies from this industry, handling a total of 3480 buildings, with 2,214 million sq.m of build-up area. The total turnover of the companies for the year in which they participated in the study, was 3,357 million BGN. If we divide this amount of the area, it turns out that the price was around 1,51 BGN per sq.m.

This is of course a conditional sum. In addition, this "price" gives no idea what and how many services benefit the clients of the company.