Sunny Beach is the biggest resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, located in the municipality of Nessebar, only 27 km. from Bourgas International Airport. Designed and created in 1958 as a small family holiday resort, today Sunny Beach is one of the most popular seaside resorts of Europe and not accidentally called "The Ibiza" on the Balkans. There are more than 200 hotels and many newly constructed apartment complexes of closed type. The number of beds is over 300,000. Sunny Beach is situated in a beautiful bay, in a crescent shape with a beach that spans 10 km long and width of 30 to 60 m. There are many beach attractions, opportunities for sport and entertainment, different types of restaurants and cocktail bars, many discos and nightclubs, casinos, shops and shopping centers that make Sunny Beach the best beach resort on the Balkans. The climate is characterized by 1700 hours of sunshine from May to October. At the same time of the year, Sunny Beach has more than one million tourists.
Sunny Beach remains the most preferred place to buy a holiday property in Bulgaria. It has been the undisputed leader for property market in this category for more than 10 years, despite the negative assessment because of its overdevelopment, poor infrastructure and youth tourism. The global economic crisis has dealt a heavy blow to the construction industry and led to a decline in property prices in the resort of up to 50%. However, this in no way affected the interest of the buyers of vacation properties in Sunny Beach resort. They just changed their origin – from West to East. Buyers interest from Central Europe and Scandinavia remains moderate. They continue to prefer Bulgaria as a popular tourist destination. The first years of the construction boom in Sunny Beach were undoubtedly dominated by British and Irish buyers, while the last few years, leaders in property purchases in the resort are Russians.
Positive signs in 2013 for future growth and economic development in the Eurozone led to predictions about the end of the recession and this gave courage to some developers in Sunny Beach area to start on new projects. Forthcoming accession of Bulgaria to Schengen reinforces forecasts for growth in prices and sales. The new complexes of properties for sale, differ significantly, with architecture as well as construction quality. Developers are aiming to meet the needs and increased demands of the new potential buyers. Nevertheless, the supply of properties for sale by owners has significant superiority over the properties for sale by builders. This trend continues with the real deals and real estate transactions in the resale market occupies 80% of the total number of finalized deals near Sunny Beach. On the real estate secondary market, British and Irish continue to be a top sellers after 2009.
The most active buyers now are Russians, followed by citizens of the former Soviet republics - Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, etc. Significantly increased is the share of buyers from Bulgaria. Preferences of buyers are mostly for one-bedroom apartments, which is the most sought holiday apartment. This type of property have 60% share of all deals with apartments as second rank studios by 25% and the remaining 15 % are two and three-bedroom apartments. Furnished apartments have an advantage over unfurnished because they save time and are ready to move in. Growth of tourism in the Sunny Beach area increased the demand for apartments with guaranteed rental, as indicator the leaders are studio apartments. Price levels for resale property in the resort are 400-600 Euros per sq.m. and the most important factor that affects them is the distance to the sea and beach. Prices above 800 Euros per sq.m. in Sunny Beach are unrealistic about the current state of the property market!
