The number of newly built residential buildings in Bulgaria in the second quarter of 2012 dropped 26% on the year to a total 520, the country's statistics office said.
Apartments numbered 2,175, or 40% less than a year earlier, the National Statistics Institute said in a statement on Friday.
In the April-June period, the highest number of new residential buildings was registered in the Black Sea port cities of Varna and Burgas where 115 and 77 buildings, respectively, were completed. The capital Sofia came third with 50 buildings.
Total useful space of newly built apartments amounted to 184,100 square metres (sq m) in the second quarter, down by 35% from the same period in 2011, as the total living floor space per building decreased by an annual 38% to 116,300 sq m.
The average useful floor space for each apartment increased from 77.9 sq m in the second quarter of last year to 84.7 sq m in the same quarter of 2012 with the biggest apartments built in Targovishte area, in the country's northeast, and the smallest in the Danube port town of Vidin.