near stara zagora Help

[hoping]

First of all hello to you all.

I am in two minds what to do and need some help to decide :vollkommenauf:
This is my dilema I want to buy a place abroad where I can just get away for a few weeks 2 or 3 times a year and Bulgaria seems to suit the bill, not too far from the uk cheap property cheap cost of living but you read on some forums and peopel seem to love it and other seem to do nothing but put you off.

I have seen a few properties that would suit the bill around the Stara Zagora could anyone give me some advise on the area and what they think about a holiday home in Bulgaria.

 

[KayJay]

First of all hello to you all.

I am in two minds what to do and need some help to decide :vollkommenauf:
This is my dilema I want to buy a place abroad where I can just get away for a few weeks 2 or 3 times a year and Bulgaria seems to suit the bill, not too far from the uk cheap property cheap cost of living but you read on some forums and peopel seem to love it and other seem to do nothing but put you off.

I have seen a few properties that would suit the bill around the Stara Zagora could anyone give me some advise on the area and what they think about a holiday home in Bulgaria.

First of all, property is cheaper than in the UK but the cost of living isn't really a lot different, if you leave vastly lower property taxes out of the equation. Life can be cheaper but only if you live in a village full-time and grow your own veg, keep chickens, fatten up a pig for Xmas etc. If you want a holiday place for a few times a year then renting an apartment is a MUCH more sensible thing to do and you can go to different parts of Bulgaria (or other countries when you get fed up here) without being tied to a property of your own. If that doesn't grab you, buy an apartment near the sea or in a city. Owning a house and some land is a great idea but for most people it's better if it stays just an idea - the amount of work/maintenance needed will stagger you.

If you buy somewhere needing work then figure on spending a lot more than you thought to get it up to a decent standard. An already renovated place will save you money in the long run but will cost more and you never know just how well the work has been done.

Pick your spot well - try to steer clear of expat "hot-spots", dying villages, areas with a large "ethnic" population and places which are near disused mines/chemical factories/refineries/Soviet-era nuclear power stations etc. Bear in mind it's HOT in the summer and COLD in the winter, so you need decent heating/cooling/double-glazing.

If you have a nice place and aren't around much be prepared to be burgled - they do the job VERY well here, including pipes/cables/sanitary fitting/double glazing etc.... Don't invite the neighbours round - even if they're really nice honest folk, they'll talk about the stuff you have there and the wrong people will be listening sooner or later.

Get your own lawyer and make sure they do the checking very carefully; be prepared to be scalped by the "agent". Don't try to fiddle the figures - make sure everything you pay is in the contract. Ensure the planning situation is 100% correct. Don't sign anything you're not 100% sure you understand.

Be aware that some villages get power/water cuts on a regular basis at certain times of the year. Check the sewage situation - if you're not on the mains, make sure you really have the septic tank they tell you about.

If you don't speak the language and are unable to even read the letters then you'll struggle and there will be people to "help" you a bit and themselves a lot. If you can't/won't make the effort to learn the language to a decent standard, ask yourself why Bulgaria rather than somewhere else. The culture here is very different and village people in the Balkans are NOT like village folk in the UK.

 

[hoping]

Wow that's put a bit of a downer on the plan, you sound like you have been stung in the past ?
so all you read about the people in Bulgaria been nice is wrong advise then and I should stay clear of buying a house with land in Bulgaria is what you are saying to me, I was hoping I could buy a place spend a bit time there do it up and sit on it in the hope it would increase in value.
What would the situation be like if you did up a property and rented it to a local I know it would be pennies but it would keep the property safe would it not ? I just thought it could be an investment to sit on for 10/15 years.

 

[KayJay]

Wow that's put a bit of a downer on the plan, you sound like you have been stung in the past ?
so all you read about the people in Bulgaria been nice is wrong advise then and I should stay clear of buying a house with land in Bulgaria is what you are saying to me, I was hoping I could buy a place spend a bit time there do it up and sit on it in the hope it would increase in value.
What would the situation be like if you did up a property and rented it to a local I know it would be pennies but it would keep the property safe would it not ? I just thought it could be an investment to sit on for 10/15 years.

No, I haven't been stung - or at least not yet - but I know of many people who have. One would think that the advice I gave would be so obvious as to be not worth spelling out but experience has shown that most people just wade in blindly.

My wife (Bulgarian) and I own several properties but we are VERY careful of what and where we buy, and very aware of the pit-falls. Most of the people you will meet here ARE perfectly okay but it only takes a burglary or two to make you realise that assuming everyone is like that can be a big mistake, as can thinking that being seen as having more money than the villagers have, and flashing it - at least in their eyes, won't be resented. When people aren't too smart and have no prospects, education, proper employment or money, then a naive incomer will sooner or later be seen as an easy touch. Bulgarians tend to keep themselves to themselves much more than Brits may be used to and it's pretty rare to invite even friends INTO your home a lot; it happens more in the cities with a population of more sophisticated, and comparatively better-off, people but villages are different.

The local expats are often into back-stabbing, fighting, boozing and moaning, so most of them are best avoided - luckily there are exceptions but sorting the wheat from the chaff isn't always easy.

You'd be hard-pressed to rent most village houses to Bulgarians - if they're in the village in the first place it'll be because they already have somewhere to live. Contracts are often worth nothing - and enforcing them is long-winded, difficult and the courts often offer no guarantee of satisfaction or even enforcement if you win. Don't assume that having anyone of any nationality renting your house will make it safe, either from others or indeed from the tenants themselves.

If you buy a house, it'll very likely cost you way too much, for a number of reasons ("agents" making a hidden killing, inflated "foreigner prices", wrong village/area etc) and you'll have to wait a long time for prices to pick up enough to make the investment anywhere near as good as simply banking the cash here. Lots of foreigners have made that mistake and are now selling their properties at a big loss - but still at too high a price.

If you want to buy a decent cheap house and you don't have the time to come here and really get to grips with the market and the different areas, then I'd strongly advise you to look elsewhere - there are some surprisingly good deals in Germany these days, for example!

 

[hoping]

Ok well thank you for your advise I like to hear from people that are real about things even though some of what you say go's against what a lot of others have told me. I have a friend of a friend of a friend that says he knows a guy that buys houses in Bulgaria spends a few months doing them up giving employment to locals and then sells them on to people wanting holiday homes but going by your advise it makes me want to stay clear thank you once again.

 

[KayJay]

Ok well thank you for your advise I like to hear from people that are real about things even though some of what you say go's against what a lot of others have told me. I have a friend of a friend of a friend that says he knows a guy that buys houses in Bulgaria spends a few months doing them up giving employment to locals and then sells them on to people wanting holiday homes but going by your advise it makes me want to stay clear thank you once again.

It's always dangerous following the advice of a man who knows a man who knows a man who knows.....

The days of buying a ruin, bunging a bit of paint around and flogging it on to some unsuspecting sucker are - almost - long gone. There are still dreamers who can't resist the lure of something they have no chance of affording "back home" - usually something they're assured can be cheaply done up by local "builders" who charge so little that they're practically paying you for the privilege of showing off their skills. This is invariably BS - the reality is a couple of Roma who don't know one end of a shovel from another. They may be grafters but they usually have no skills and don't want to be told what to do by some foreigner. Anyone giving a place a quick face-lift to palm it off asap is hardly looking to "give employment to locals", he's more interested in hiding the major flaws for as little as possible and hence hires the cheapest workers he can find; the only person he's helping is himself. If you leave your house empty you're inviting theft/vandalism - and the big garden which you were so keen to acquire will be a jungle before you turn around.

Don't get me wrong - I'm just giving you a reality-check so you have a better idea of what you might be letting yourself in for. If you want to make money then a holiday home in a village isn't the way to go. Old houses in a village may look like a good deal and there may be some old baba living there (or more likely just died in) it but you'll soon find the "toilet" is a leaky mud hut in the garden with a non-existent septic tank, that the house will cost many times more than you though (or the "agent" claimed) to renovate - that's why there's an ever-increasing tide of disillusioned expats heading back to the UK/Ireland.

You'll be more likely to make money on an apartment in a DECENT complex on the Black Sea or in Sofia, Varna or Burgas (in descending order). There are also some reasonable deals in the ski resorts. However, if it's rented out then you won't be spending any holidays there yourself and your return, after you've bought/furnished/paid maintenance/paid management/paid tax/paid insurance/kept some aside for wear & tear etc is still going to be a lot less than a BG bank will pay you in interest, even now. The ski resorts are also owned by oligarchs and/or the BG mafia and you can get your fingers badly burned if you don't understand the market dynamic properly, Any complex can be tricky here, due to unscrupulous developers, dodgy maintenance companies etc.

All in all, if you're prepared to take the time to really get to know the country and its regions, try to understand the pros and cons of the local market, and learn when to walk away from that "dream deal" then with a bit of luck and patience you CAN find the right place. However, if you're just looking for a quick cheap deal then I'd still suggest that Germany is probably a safer bet!

 

[Lysos]

There must be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of 'investors' who wish that they'd had the benefit of an honest appraisal such as KayJay's before parting with their money.

A lot bought without doing the most basic research, never mind actually visiting the country, falling for glossy brochures and salesmen's spiel. The most common lie was along the lines of "you can enjoy your holidays there and let it out the rest of the time, so it will pay for itself"; patently untrue, of course as the chances are the purchaser would want to use the property in peak letting periods.

You will never make money investing in a property dependent on short term holiday rentals.

Unless you plan on spending at least 6 months of the year in a particular location, you are, as KayJay advises, better off renting.

If you are still determined to buy a place then there are desperate sellers all around the Mediterranean. Personally, long term, I concur with KayJay that Germany is worth considering, especially in the south around the Bodensee.

Although this thread focuses on Bulgaria, the scenario of disappointed investors with unsellable/unfinished properties is repeated in numerous other countries, such as, but not limited to Spain, Cape Verde, Morocco, Dubai & Egypt.

Perhaps one day someone will tally up just how much money has been lost by mainly British & Irish purchasers. I suspect billions rather than millions.