I would like to know your high level views about having purchased in Bg? Are you interested in renting your apartments/houses/villas? If so what has been successful in getting rental clients for you? What made you attracted to Bulgaria in the first place? Was it sales pressure or your own desires?

Do you think the property values will ever return to 2006 levels? In my experience they are about 60% less than in 2006, if you can even find a buyer. What about rental values, what do you think is a reasonable daily or weekly rate to ask? Russians seem to only want daily rates but Brits often think in terms of weekly - is that your experience too? Does anyone think it is worth advertising on Russian sites, using an agent?

I am interested in renting out my Balchik apartment, overlooking the Black Sea, for very reasonable rates. It is a managed block with its own pool, lovely views and a modern fully fitted apartment with all amenities. Anyone interested may reply to this topic or contact me, though you all will probably know better than me how it works on here, so not sure if I should even be promoting it.

regards
Drings

Some very interesting questions you have highlighted here and I'm sure you will get a good response, don't worry about plugging your prop the staff would have moved it before now if they didn't like it. Good luck I think this will be a good topic.

Hi drings

drings wrote:

What made you attracted to Bulgaria in the first place? Was it sales pressure or your own desires?

We chose Bulgaria because we'd been visiting the country for about 12 years prior to deciding to purchase there.

Certainly not sales pressure that made us buy. Once we'd decided on the town we wanted to live in, we spent two weeks there, walking round, chatting to the locals and finding our the houses which were for sale. We then visited them all and we made our offer direct to the owners.

drings wrote:

though you all will probably know better than me how it works on here, so not sure if I should even be promoting it.

No problem mentioning your property, if anyone wants to contact you, they will use the PM system on the forum.

Retiring from business in Greece where I had lived for nearly 20 years it was the cheap price of property in Bugaria that attracted me. Already realised that we could not afford to renovate my Greek ruin and live on my UK State Pension for long as Greece was in the Euro. Bulgaria offered a liveable home large enough to rent half of it after a small renovation. This was in the heyday of early 2004. We rented for about 3 years to househunters which came aplenty and were happy to stay with us for a small sum and be taken around the beautiful area. I think all ended up buying a property although only one renter bought in the village as the prices were higher than elsewhere. Location, safety, no problems with utilities kept the price a little more expensive than other less desirable areas. At this time there was little info on the internet so people probably didn't know much about the problems of some villages and agents certainly wouldn't tell them. We had no car to drive around.
My partner also looked after some properties in the village and strimmed gardens. All this activity gradually came to a halt due to the recession and exchange rates. We stopped renting and as British people had to curb spending they didn't want to pay for house and garden maintenance especially as we lived on the spot and so the thinking was that we should do it for nothing as a 'friend'.
What I am saying here is, the bottom has dropped out of several markets due to recession and it is not just because property was overpriced by the Bulgarians. Our house cost 14,000euros for a big basically liveable house that we could live in immediately and be on site for the renovation. I have never thought it was overpriced.
However, I didn't buy for just a rental business but for longterm living so we are doing well.
I still believe that people taking the longterm view will be doing alright in Bulgaria providing they have enough capital to start with, no mortgage and can wait it out. Renting out is an option possibly more for other Eastern Block people rather than relying on the Brits.
The other Brits who might be doing okay still, are the ones who have some kind of business especially for the expats, or work on the internet. I would think that even then profits might be low but I have no knowledge of this market. Perhaps others can post their views on business in Bulgaria.
My future plan for keeping abreast of European financial problems is to use up my Bulgarian savings on living here and when they run out, will return to UK to rent with money safely (I hope) in a UK bank which should last until I kick the bucket. Fortunately I am used to living on a small budget! Goodness knows how long that will be, but at least I will have a few more years before being at the mercy of world recession and exchange rates. Its fortunate that I am retired and have some savings. I think I am one of the lucky few.
I hope that gives the original poster some idea. Other than that the answer to his questions is 'who knows?'

drings wrote:

I would like to know your high level views about having purchased in Bg? Are you interested in renting your apartments/houses/villas? If so what has been successful in getting rental clients for you? What made you attracted to Bulgaria in the first place? Was it sales pressure or your own desires?

Do you think the property values will ever return to 2006 levels? In my experience they are about 60% less than in 2006, if you can even find a buyer. What about rental values, what do you think is a reasonable daily or weekly rate to ask? Russians seem to only want daily rates but Brits often think in terms of weekly - is that your experience too? Does anyone think it is worth advertising on Russian sites, using an agent?

I am interested in renting out my Balchik apartment, overlooking the Black Sea, for very reasonable rates. It is a managed block with its own pool, lovely views and a modern fully fitted apartment with all amenities. Anyone interested may reply to this topic or contact me, though you all will probably know better than me how it works on here, so not sure if I should even be promoting it.

regards
Drings

Drings, I think the only saving grace here is that when we purchased, the Euro was at a different rate to what it is today
For example we purchased for 94,00 euro at the time £65,000, at today's rate if we wanted to sell for 74,000 euro we would be not far off what we paid in Pounds in the first place. If anybody woul like a summer holiday at a beautiful villa pm me and we will discuss prices

Exactly Willowsend. The poor and fluctuating exchange rate means roughly a loss of 30% on my pension if I have it transferred over here. Its also the reason that resales seem more expensive. You can't blame folks who are actually losing out on exchange rates as well as renovation costs. Maybe their houses weren't overpriced as much as people think, but again its down to exchange rates. The man in the street can't win in this situation because even transferring euros into sterling is not good because of problems with the economy in Britain. Over to the experts on this one and hence my personal solution to use up my levas (pegged to the euro) and saving my pension in Britain. The only problem with this is what if the euro goes?