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Sales of land plots for construction in Bulgaria totalled 262 million euro last year, according to data of consultancy firm Real Capital Analytics (RCA), Pari daily reported on February 18 2008.
The report includes data on the performance of office, retail, hotel, industrial space and buildings plots on real estate markets worldwide, but only for deals above 10 million US dollars.
In Bulgaria, RCA registered 10 large-scale purchases of plots for the construction of office buildings, which accounts for more than 30 per cent of the big deals in the country. This speaks well for a continuing entrepreneurial interest in this sector, Pari daily said.
Retail segment remained dynamic as well, with the volume of land purchases estimated at 472 million euro, double the amount in the office space segment. Industrial areas showed the smallest growth on the two deals covered by the survey and hotels exhibited the poorest dynamics, with only one large-scale transaction.
RCA data showed that the number of deals in business properties and land in Bulgaria for 2007 amounted to slightly more than billion euro.
The total volume of similar transactions in Europe peaked at 215.3 billion euro. Half of them were in the office space segment, followed by retail developments with 25 per cent share, hotels and industrial property.
Transactions in land registered a minor share, which showed a mature investment market, unlike the Asian one, where transactions in plots formed around half of the total volume of real estate transactions.
Europe has seen another significant trend -- a growing number of buy-to-lease back deals. RCA analysts said that a large number of companies preferred to secure free resources for their activity through the sale of their fixed assets, staying put in the offices by signing long-term lease contracts.