Bistritza Gardens, the second closed-type residential complex in the Sofia area, is on the horizon for Gardens Group – a group of foreign investors developing the project through Bistritza Gardens Ltd. After successfully completing its first project, Sofia Gardens, Gardens Group has great plans for Bistritza Gardens. 


“For the past several years, Bulgaria has seen a real boom in the construction of residential buildings. Having that in mind, we try to provide with our projects more advantages to the people who have chosen to live in such residential complexes,” Didi Stoyanova from Bistritza Gardens Ltd says. “We see that the market is flooded with new buildings, built close to one another disregarding any standards. This is what we are trying to avoid with Bistritza Gardens, which comprises 52 single houses of different types.”

When talking about Bistritza Gardens, many will associate the name with the Sofia suburb Bistritza, at the outskirts of Mount Vitosha.

Indeed, the housing complex is situated in the centre of Bistritza village, just six km from the Sofia ring road.

“I have tried this myself several times. It takes me no more than 25 to 30 minutes to come from Bistritza to Sofia downtown, no matter the traffic,” Stoyanova says.

The word “gardens” is part of every project of Gardens Group. Stoyanova has an easy explanation for this. Gardens is the brand name of five projects sponsored and developed by Gardens Group. The name was invented by Moshe Achiron, the man representing all investors. “It is just because each of our projects is designed to be a garden,” Stoyanova says. “When we talk about residential complexes, besides good location, the other most important thing is the surroundings. More green areas where your children can play make a certain project much more attractive to people.”

This is what Bistritza Gardens is planned to be – a place where both you and your family can enjoy peaceful and happy moments together. “Our clients are working people who have families with children or at least plan to have children in the near future,” Stoyanova says. “Safe surroundings is the key phrase. We want our clients to be sure that their children are safe, playing outside until nightfall. For this, we offer them clean streets with daily maintenance.”

There will be permanent security guards at Bistritza Gardens, with Gardens Group securing the governance and monitoring of all provided services. The complex will be surrounded by a fence and will have two entrances, giving easy access to both residents and visitors. All of this is not necessarily indicative of higher prices, according to Stoyanova. The prices for a house at Bistritza Gardens vary from 220 000 euro to 340 000 euro, VAT included.

“We think this is a very reasonable price, since the client will receive not only a house for his money but a plot of very attractive land,” Stoyanova notes, and gives the example that a luxury three-bedroom apartment in the Lozenets quarter of downtown Sofia may cost anything between 200 000 euro and 300 000 euro.

Each house in Bistritza Gardens will have its own yard and a two-car garage. The plots vary from 408 sq m to 700 sq m. There are six different types of houses with built-up areas between 231 sq m and 365 sq m. There will be a small spa centre and fitness facilities, as well as a playground for the little ones. “This was suggested by some of our clients, who prefer not to maintain a gym in their own houses, and we did it,” she says.

Living next to a mountain raises the question of heating. It seems that the team of Bistritza Gardens has found a reasonable and very effective solution. “I personally take great pride in our solution,” Stoyanova says. The main problem was that still natural gas is not supplied to the Bistritza area. “For the convenience and less expenses of our clients we decided to take care of the organization and invest in a reservoir full of natural gas to be installed close by Bistritza Gardens. All houses will be connected to it. We will only have to supply natural gas to the tank, which we are currently negotiating with the natural gas company. When Bistritza village becomes part of the natural gas supply network, our clients will just hook their systems to it. Until then, they will use the reservoir,” Stoyanova says.

Financing is very important when one buys a house of several thousand euro. “We have never had problems securing the financing of the projects. We offer two things to our clients in terms of financing. First is complete transparency and second, security,” she explains.

Furthermore, Bistritza Gardens, with the co-operation with EIBank, offers its clients preferential packages for credit.“Soon we will have all details for this package put on our website at www.gardens.bg.”

Many of the Bulgarians buying houses in Gardens Group’s complexes come from the financial and banking sphere. “We are glad that we could meet the requirements of both foreigners, diplomats and Bulgarians at one and the same project,” Stoyanova says.

Gardens Group has just finalised the tender for a contractor and the chosen company is Lindner Bulgaria. “The next step is the start of building the infrastructure. It is planned for the project to be completed by the first quarter of 2008. In terms of sales, Bistritza Gardens started selling in December 2006. “We only started selling after we were sure about all paper work and permits.” Two houses have already been sold, and interest will only continue to grow.

“I can only advise you to take a car and go see for yourself the beauty of Bistritza village. The scenery, the tranquility and closeness to nature are unique characteristics of the place,” Stoyanova says.