禁漫天堂

Welcome to the forum!

It really depends what you want. City or country? Coast or mountains? Apartment or house? Willing to spend time doing up an unrenovated property and work in the garden, or want something ready to go you can lockup and leave?

It's possible to do it all without speaking or reading Bulgarian, but starting to learn will help a lot in everyday life and even a few words will be show you're trying!

Have you looked at any of the property websites? Bulgarian Properties and Rightmove are good places to start. Top floor apartments can be problematic - if the roof leaks, though theoretically all the property owners in the building should contribute, in practice it tends to be down the to person most affected. And village houses may look lovely in the agent's photos but unless it's clear they've been completely renovated can need waaaaaay more work than we imagine. The older Bulgarians are far hardier than the average Brit and lived with housing conditions many might find challenging.

Be aware of costs - in Bulgaria the buyer pays the fees. Agents fees can start from 500 EUR to 2000 EUR and more, depending on the property price. Also allow another 10% for notary fees (the legal process of transferring ownership) and taxes.

Also, research the village and the area. Some places are far friendlier and welcoming to incomers than others, and though on the whole Bulgaria is safe, some places may have unacceptable crime rates for things like theft and break-ins. For a holiday home left empty for long periods, some security precautions may be wise.

I hope you find what you're looking for! We're currently renovating a cheapie house needing lots of renovation, counting the days until we retire and can move permanently. It's a huge amount of work! But we love the village and the region and have been wonderfully welcomed.

I've been happily retired in Bulgaria for some years, and recommend it highly. It's definitely not as cheap as it was (or as cheap as many foreigners think it is), but it's still relatively inexpensive. For buying property, owning property, and general living, your money will definitely go a lot further here than in the UK or elsewhere in the EU.

I've been extremely lazy and don't speak Bulgarian (other than a few useful words to be polite), and find reading Cyrillic a struggle. Many younger folks do speak some English (as it's now taught in schools as the 2nd language, rather than the Russian of former times). Google Translate works very well, and for official issues a state-registered translator is fairly inexpensive (mine is 25 euros for an hour).

Property purchase is relatively quick and inexpensive, and handled by a state-registered Notary. There are many nice locations (mountains, sea, city, countryside, lakes) and plenty of websites offering properties.

For me, I see holiday properties and retirement properties as two different animals. A holiday flat can be small, comfortable for a few days, and usually in a holiday destination (beach or ski/mountain or historic city). While you'd need a much bigger place for retirement, either in a year-round city location or out in a nice village in some scenic countryside. If you can afford a larger city apartment (in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, etc.) this probably works well for both, while also having all services nearby (hospitals, supermarkets, malls, parks, etc.).

A city/holiday flat is an easy lock-up-and-leave with minimal maintenance issues, and peace of mind from a security perspective. While a village house can be a great retirement option, they're not great for holidays for a couple of weeks a year (especially if retirement is 15 years away, rather than 2 or 3). There's too much maintenance on a house and garden that's neglected in the other 50 weeks, and long-empty houses can be a tempting target. If you're thinking of longer stays, based on your visa limit (90 days in 180) then you could spend 6 months here, and I'd have fewer concerns.

@janemulberry has bravely taken on a village renovation project, while still based in the UK. But I believe their retirement is only a couple of years away, and they are making longer visits/stays to work on the house.

I think it's very unfortunate that Bulgaria does not offer an easy residence option for those who haven't yet retired, but want to buy a property. (Property purchase qualifies, but only over 300k euros, which is more than most folks want to spend on a holiday flat or retirement house.) Spain and Portugal are way ahead of us on this, as they offer easy options (the NLV and the D7) which are extremely popular. It's nice to be able to visit your holiday flat on the Med, and stay there as little or as long as you like... while also counting down the 5 years to Permanent Resident status.

@gwynj

We are planning to visit to see if it suits us for retirement as there is so much the government in UK is doing to make life difficult for pensioners. I do have a few concerns which will make our final decision. One is loose dogs and animals and the other is the creeping restrictions going across Europe. They seem to be making it very difficult, Spain, Portugal, France and even Turkey with very high minimum income requirements. With Bulgaria also being EU are they going to be pressurised to do the same as it does appear to be spreading? I have been monitoring things closely.

@jeanmandredeix

Bulgaria certainly seems to plough its own furrow in this respect! 馃榿聽

Other EU countries are indeed much stricter - or if you prefer, more discerning - when it comes to who can become a "resident" without actually residing, or a "trade rep" of a non-existent company.聽 Quite what will happen in the future - both as/if the EU expands, or even if it falls apart - is anyone's guess.聽 The present bunch of clowns masquerading as a government here won't, IMO, be around much longer, but whether whoever/whatever replaces them will be any better - and for whom - is yet another imponderable question.聽 I'm not sure I'd go along with the "creeping restrictions" school of thought - immigration into the EU is certainly too unrestricted at the moment, and it needs to be better controlled and contained.聽 That involves deciding just what kind of immigrants are needed and what, if anything, they bring to the party: economic migrants whose contribution is primarily to increase the cost of property, and the profits of German supermarket chains, may regard themselves as somehow more entitled to float around Europe, due to some fancied cultural affinity (or skin tone) but Brexit has raised serious questions about just what "European" means and exactly how it manifests itself.聽 Those "creeping restrictions" are even more necessary in a country like Bulgaria, where the spectre of a shrinking population is all too real, and the prospect of diluting the essence of what makes this an enticing bolt-hole from many aspects of modernity even more so.聽 Too often we hear of people coming here to escape many of the lunacies of present-day "wokery", and then complaining that things are different and should be more like "back home".聽 My own feeling is that incomers need to either move here or stay way - "sink or swim", if you prefer.聽 And it's quire clear that young people who come here with, or looking to start, a family are what the country really needs, rather than some itinerant OAP like yours truly... 馃槑

About the stray animal problem, these days it's nothing compared to what it was 20 years ago, or even more recently:

@janemulberry has bravely taken on a village renovation project, while still based in the UK. But I believe their retirement is only a couple of years away, and they are making longer visits/stays to work on the house.
- @gwynj

Brave, or crazy?

I agree completely that a holiday home and retirement property may be two very different things. It depends what the buyer wants and their available budget.

Buying a renovation project like an old village house with a big garden does not make for relaxing holidays and one can never be quite sure what problems might have developed while the house is unoccupied. Village houses do seem to find all sorts of mischief to get up to, from slipped tiles to broken windows to leaky pipes, an inevitably the neatly trimmed garden that I left behind will be a jungle of weeds when I return. However, for someone on a lower budget able to visit a few times a year and willing to spend all their holidays DIYing and chopping waist high weeds, it's an option.

A small apartment in a city, beach, or mountains makes a simpler and probably more enjoyable holiday home, but will cost more upfront and may not be what's needed for full-time living.

A small apartment in a city, beach, or mountains makes a simpler and probably more enjoyable holiday home, but will cost more upfront and may not be what's needed for full-time living. - @janemulberry

Hmmm...I wonder 馃槑

Just quickly glancing through the official repossessed auction site - and always bearing in mind that we're talking about starting prices (which will reduce if there's no buyer in the first round) - there's a somewhat shabby but certainly liveable-in two-bedroom apartment in a panel block in Plovdiv going for 鈧�37k.聽 I suspect that these days pretty any village fixer-upper is going to cost that, or more, by the time it's been renovated - and apartments are a lot cheaper to heat etc than village properties.

Especially as one gets older, a stroll to Lidl/Kaufland or wherever to pick up fruit and veg is a LOT less hassle than breaking your back in the garden to grow your own, even if you have your very own hand-carved trug and a wardrobe full of flowing frocks from Laura Ashley to do it in.... 馃榿

Hmm, I do enjoy聽 a nice flowing Laura Ashley dress, for sure. But so impractical for getting out there with the hand shears to mow the 1/4 acres of nettles, wild lettuce, and spear grass I do my best to keep under control!

Agreed that a village "renovator's special" can easily end up costing more than a city apartment. The upfront cost is less, so it is a way into the market for someone without a lot of spare capital up front. But it's not a low-cost option. I've already spent more than the purchase price on the new roof and bathroom, and it's still nowhere near truly liveable.

I should think though that the repossession market is not necessarily a safe place for the beginner or the unwise to venture into. I've seen apartments in need of almost as much renovation as our old village house! When we sell our UK house and we have some more money to play with, our intention is to buy a city apartment as Plan B for when we get too decrepit to manage village life. I know who to ask for advice.

I know who to ask for advice. - @janemulberry

Great - make sure you introduce me to them as well...we all need good advice! 锘�馃槀

Well I spent hours yesterday looking at countries across the world that we could move to but Bulgaria was the only one, which was within budget. Most wanted huge sums deposited in the bank and very high minimum income. So Bulgaria it will be. Looks as though it鈥檚 easier to fly to Sophia than the other airports, just hoping kennels won鈥檛 upset our dog too much. Want to check to see if it鈥檚 right so will get there in March with a few viewings booked and see how we get on. Thanks for the info.

@jeanmandredeix

It's a bit of a Catch-22 situation: if you buy a cheap fixer-upper because you're strapped for cash, you can easily find yourself in a situation where you've ploughed everything into the property, and it's still not in a condition where you can really relax knowing that you've got a reliable roof over your head and a place that's secure and easy to keep warm/cool.聽 As in pretty much every country, renovations/improvements ALWAYS go over the most carefully-planned budgets (and schedules), while getting value for your money out of pseudo-masters is invariably a struggle.

We're shortly embarking on a new Renovation Adventure and frankly I'm already dreading it, even though it's a real "bargain" for various reasons.聽 It's going to take a lot of time and cash, but I'm hoping that my newly-discovered rich Nigerian uncle will be helping out financially, once the payments for the Administrative Processing Fees I've sent him have cleared....and those kidnappers receive the ransom I sent them and release him, of course. 馃槑

Yes, fully aware of the pitfalls of costs and work involved as we took on a renovation in France and our problem at that time was hubbie was working 7 days a week (he was an electrician) and getting work done was impossible but not earning enough to pay someone or find someone who can actually do the work properly. My husband was fed up with sorting out what some people had done and putting in English systems. Sadly, drilling through stone walls damaged his back and he ended up being unable to carry on. So any property we would search for would be at least sound and not needing major work.

@jeanmandredeix

I know what you mean - I had more than my fair share of "French Adventures" back in the day, and met quite a few Brits there who came a cropper in one way or another!聽 It's not vastly different here, except that it's even harder to find good tradesmen than in France - the majority of the good ones are earning serious money in London, Paris, Frankfurt - or in the US/Canada.

Some people have managed to find what they regard as competent workers; I can't claim to have seen more than a tiny sample of this "competence" but the vast majority of what I have seen clearly didn't involve the clients going anywhere near Specsavers..馃�惵� We had an apartment in a supposedly up-market closed complex, built with "great attention to detail and no expense spared" - it looked okay, but the standard of workmanship was actually pretty shoddy once you'd lived with it for a year or two.

The "best bets" used to be the properties bought for ridiculously high sums by foreigners who thought they'd snapped up a bargain; they'd then spend way over the odds on renovations before deciding that the NHS/baby-sitting grandchildren/having a local Wetherspoon or Asda/being able to communicate with the local properly etc were indispensable parts of their lives and selling up at a loss to scurry "back home".聽 I don't know if there are many/any of those properties left on the market these days, but you never know what may crop up when you least expect it.

Our village house was previously owned by some British "swingers", who were convinced that they could run a partner-swapping retreat in rural Bulgaria.聽 All they managed to achieve was to confuse the heck out of the neighbours, get burgled and go bust.聽 One of our apartments was previously owned by a Brit, who eventually got fed up flying to Bulgaria for 2 days each year in order to pay the utility bills and municipal tax; he practically gave us the property in his haste to cut his losses.聽 I've met similar sorts of people in Greece and France - you can usually spot them easily and you, and they, know that they've screwed up big time by confusing pipe dreams with reality, and they're never going to fit in or make a go of it.聽 The rest of us just muddle on through and enjoy the experience! 馃榿

I would agree that one of the better ways to get a renovated property will be to look for a Brit selling up. The Facebook Bulgaria groups have quite a few! Some will be in a hurry to sell and will be very negotiable on price, some will want to try to get back what they spent or have enough for at least a deposit back in the UK, and will overprice the property. And some will look nice on the surface but not really be well enough renovated where it counts. Or will have photos that no longer reflect the condition of the property. Empty houses deteriorate fast!

There's a Brit-owned house for sale in our village -- all very nicely renovated, apart from the roof. It looks to me as if they assumed because the roof didn't leak, it was fine. Then rotten timbers gave way, the roof leaked badly, the lovely new plasterboard ceilings and pretty laminate flooring are ruined. Considering the amount of work needed to make the house liveable again, they are asking way too much for it.

Anyway, good luck with your visit! I hope you like Bulgaria. Moving to reduce the cost of living and then getting stuck somewhere you really don't enjoy isn't a nice thought. We do love Bulgaria, while hopefully not being blind to the challenges. But as numerous posts on the forum show, it's very much Marmite.

@janemulberry

Glad you said Marmite: the counterfeit Antipodean substitute, Vegemite, is a thinly-disguised ploy by their brewing industry to increase beer sales, as those poor benighted descendants of convicts attempt to wash the godawful taste out of their mouths. The combination of Foster's and Vegemite then joins the legendary mix of sweetcorn and tomato skins of mysterious origin to form Australia's celebrated contribution to World Art, the technicolour yawn.... 馃槑