How to prepare your apartment for sale – realtor’s advice to sellers of property in Bulgaria

If you decide to sell a house or apartment in Bulgaria, start preparing for it in advance. Apart Estate experts are unanimous in the opinion that the more carefully and accurately you do everything, the faster you will sell the property, and the more money you will receive for it. So, how to prepare an apartment for sale – realtor's advice to sellers of property in Bulgaria.

Preparation of sales documents

One of the first questions potential property buyers ask is whether the documents are ready for sale. Many are looking for an apartment for which they can make an advance payment and move in just a week later. Therefore, the most important stage in the sale of real estate, and sometimes the most time-consuming, is related to the preparation of documents.

List of papers that you will need to complete the transaction:

• Notary Act. You should have received it when buying a house or apartment, when entering into an inheritance or registering real estate purchased from a developer. If the act is lost, you can get its duplicate at the real estate registration agency.
• Cadastral scheme. It is ordered at the agency for geodesy, cartography and cadastre. Most often, in small towns, a special department in the municipality is engaged in the preparation. The scheme has no validity time. However, if some major changes were made in an apartment or house, the document becomes invalid and a new one must be ordered.
• Information about the tax value. Ordered at the local tax office. If you order it at the beginning of the year, it will be valid until the end of June, if you order it in the second half of the year, then it will be valid until the end of December.
• Certificate of absence of encumbrances. This document is ordered from the real estate registration agency and is valid only at the time of issuing. In this regard, it must be prepared right before the transaction. Often it is downloaded from a system by a notary or a lawyer directly at the time of sale.
• Declaration of marital status. If the property was purchased while you were married, the consent of the second spouse is required to sell it.

Market research

Before you put up your property for sale, study similar offers. Analyze the prices, determine in what condition it is more profitable to sell your apartment – with or without cosmetic repairs.

For analysis, take offers for real estate in the same area, residential complex, and with a similar view from the window. Pay attention to the distance to the sea, when it comes to selling an apartment in Burgas, St. Vlas or Sunny Beach. It is important to check the floor, maintenance fee and infrastructure. Do not forget to specify the purpose for which your property can be used – rental, vacations or year-round living.

Please note that apartments for permanent residence on the middle floors and with a minimum maintenance fee usually cost more. Real estate with sea views in Sozopol, Chernomorets, and Pomorie or with views at the mountains, if you sell a studio or apartment in the ski resort of Pamporovo or in Bansko, have a higher price.

Repairs and restoration of the appearance of the apartment

If the flat is in a poor state and it will be difficult to sell it at a good price without repair, try to recover it somehow. By this you will attract more buyers, will convince them that the property is completely ready for living and will sell it for a higher price.
It is not necessary to do a complete overhaul – just eliminate obvious problems, for example, change the pipe in the bathroom, make walls more even or replace window fittings.

Additionally, it is recommended to make cosmetic repairs – paint the ceiling and walls or put new wallpaper. Worn-out laminate is also better to replace or you can put linoleum instead.
In addition to planning and performing repairs, pay attention to the presence of rust, fungus, and dirt spots. All this needs to be washed and cleaned – only an apartment in excellent condition will attract the attention of buyers and make them think about buying it.

When selling real estate, it is better not to install very expensive furniture and not order designer repairs. We understand that in this way you will try to convince buyers that everything in the apartment was done “for yourself”. However, most customers pay attention only to the price.

By the way, it is not recommended to invite buyers to see the apartment during the repair. Wait for it to be completed.
It is also important to take beautiful photos of your apartment for advertising. How to take good photos of the apartment – read the article on our website.

Define how you want to sell your property – with furniture and housing equipment or without

Another important issue is to determine exactly what you want to sell. You can offer an empty apartment without furniture and household appliances. This will allow you to sell cabinets, a boiler, and air conditioners separately and get additional income.

There is also an option to put up a fully furnished, ready-to-live-in apartment for sale. The price may be slightly higher. Based on rich experience, Apart Estate experts are sure that it is possible to sell such a flat more profitably.

It is not recommended to cheat – offering an apartment or a house, do not deny that you are selling real estate with furniture and appliances, while planning to remove the equipment, cabinets, tables, or chairs after the buyer makes an advance payment

Determine the way you want to sell your property

It is important to decide for yourself how you prefer to sell an apartment – on your own, involving real estate agencies, a management company or unofficial intermediaries. Whatever your decision, try to work with people you trust, who you can consult with in case of an ambiguous situation, and who, if necessary, will be able to represent your interests.

The Apart Estate agency has been operating in the real estate market for many years. For all these years, we have helped to sell and buy real estate to citizens of Ukraine, Israel, Germany,

Russia and other countries of the world. Our experts are involved at all stages of the transaction – from determining the price to representing the interests of clients at the notary during the signing of the sales contract.

If you decide to sell your apartment in Bulgaria, we advise you to take care of its appearance, availability of documents, and pricing in advance. Apart Estate will help at any of these stages, prepare an expert opinion, guide you on how much you can offer real estate for, and offer your apartment or house to clients from all over the world.2