Yordan Yordanov: Joining the eurozone opens up a huge real estate market

How will joining the eurozone affect the real estate market? This is the hot topic at the beginning of 2026. Yordan Yordanov, investor, co-owner, and managing director of the Nov Dom 1 agency, answers the questions that sellers and buyers are asking themselves.

What is the current situation? According to Eurostat data for the third quarter of 2025, housing prices in the EU rose by 5.5% year-on-year, and in the eurozone by 5.1%. Bulgaria is among the top three countries with the highest increase at 15.4%, after Hungary (+21.1%) and Portugal (+17.7%). Over a 10-year period, from 2015 to 2025, prices in Bulgaria have tripled (+156%), but again, they are not the highest in the EU.

The Bulgarian market is highly promising, with great potential for profit from real estate investments, and is undergoing intense regulation and digitalization. The interest of returning Bulgarians and foreigners is stimulating demand and supply.

Long-term increase linked to rising living standards

In the short term, given the lack of a state budget, prices will remain stable for the first few months.

The expert predicts a long-term increase in property prices as a result of rising living standards, opportunities, and people’s desire to live in larger and more comfortable properties. “We expect demand to increase, especially for higher quality and more spacious properties. Of course, in this case, it is important to maintain Bulgaria’s competitive advantage in terms of low tax rates, or everything could go wrong. To date, Bulgaria is the best country for real estate investment in the entire EU in terms of investment for resale. This segment is currently driving the market upwards,” explains Yordanov.

However, there are other factors that stimulate price growth.

The great return and opening of the market to foreign citizens

The return of nearly 100,000 Bulgarians to the country over the past five years has boosted demand. With the country’s entry into the eurozone, demand for real estate from foreign citizens of the European Union is also growing. More affordable prices and excellent living conditions will attract many foreign customers to the real estate market in Bulgaria.

Here are the advantages of Bulgaria as a real estate market, according to the entrepreneur: “We are now talking about a larger European market, in a peaceful, safe, free country with nice, open-minded people, delicious food, and excellent nightlife. This will increase interest in us, and new real estate projects are expected to get better and better. That is why we have started recruiting and training English-speaking brokers to provide excellent service to the foreign clients we expect. This trend can be observed in the capital and in Burgas.”

Stronger regulation and digitalisation

Yordanov compares the experience of other countries that have recently joined the eurozone in terms of property supply and prices with Bulgaria. According to him, the situation in Croatia is closest to that in Bulgaria.

He explains that the rules for transactions are about to be tightened, especially in the area of personal data administration, filling out all kinds of declarations in the section on mandatory measures under the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), and customer verification. This leads to increased bureaucracy and the search for easier ways to work electronically.

Increased investment in real estate and more “working money”

However, customer attitudes toward purchasing real estate are changing for the better. According to the co-owner of Nov Dom 1, more and more people are investing in real estate “because they have the opportunity to make excellent profits and returns.”

“Most of the ‘working’ money is already a reality. With the abolition of the currency board, the Bulgarian National Bank released bank reserves of over €7.5 billion, which are ready for lending. At this stage, we expect interest rates to remain stable and even fall below 2%,” he predicts.

His advice to clients and investors is as follows: “A huge market is opening up because confidence in Bulgaria will increase with the eurozone.
In this market, it is important to consult and work with professionals. It is better to have more and unnecessary information than less and insufficient information, because we are talking about a lot of money, and mistakes can cost us a lot.“