Оценяване на вероятността от възникване на жилищен балон в България почти две години след началото на пандемията от COVID-19
Assessing The Likelihood of a Housing Bubble Formation in Bulgaria Almost Two Years After the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Summary/Abstract: This article attempts to assess the extent to which the housing market in Bulgaria demonstrates signs of overheating at the end of 2021. Developments in this period are compared versus those in 2008, when the price bubble in residential properties reached its peak and then popped, followed by a prolong correction. Both periods share something in common: they took place within the duration of two major events that cast a strong adverse impact upon the world economy: the COVID-19 pandemic and the Global financial crisis. The article describes the nature of price bubbles and points out possible ways for their identification based on a review of relevant publications. The dynamics of certain indicators related to the domestic housing market is observed, in particular: the house price index (HPI), number of property sales and registered mortgages, inflation of rents, average salary. Among the diagnostic tools two econometric methods are applied: the first one compares whether the annual smoothed growth has overrun the average annual growth for the period plus its standard deviation, while the second one uses a Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter to isolate the cyclical component of residential prices. Based on the results, a conclusion is made about any possible signs suggesting that a housing market bubble has emerged in Bulgaria during the pandemic.

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