By Anna Grybel-Kloc

The Mortgage industry in Bulgaria is still in its infancy and is characterised by:

• rapid growth
• banks being cautious in lending
• good choice of products
• moderate to high cost of borrowing
• a fairly lengthy and bureaucratic application process.

Mortgage industry has been growing rapidly

The mortgage industry is still in its infancy in Bulgaria. The debt to GDP ratio is only 7% (2006) and ranks third lowest in the EU, after Slovenia and Romania.

The low mortgage penetration suggests that there is massive room for growth in the future to achieve the EU average of 50%.