Should you buy from Bulgarian Properties IN BANSKO? (Bansko)

Member Name: Spooked

Product:	Bansko
Date:	20/10/05 (1075 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Professionally run - good at keeping you informed

Disadvantages: None so far

My colleague and I were looking to invest in some overseas property but found the popular European and American areas too expensive.

After holidaying in the ski resort of Borovets in Bulgaria I decided to visit a local estate agent to browse through the properties they had on offer.

I was amazed at how low the prices were for some of these places and vowed to do more research when I returned to the UK.

There are really only two choices of location in Bulgaria – Sunny Beach on the Black Sea coast or the ski resort of Bansko. We opted for the all year round letting potential of Bansko and started to search for suitable properties.

Using a site called Bulgarianproperties.com we found out that you currently cannot own land in Bulgaria as a non-Bulgarian citizen. You can get around this by creating a Bulgarian company and have the company own the property and land. This seemed like too much hassle. The other alternative was to buy an apartment. Again we were faced with two choices, buy an existing property or buy “off-plan”. This means that they hadn’t started building yet! As this was the cheapest option, this is the way we went.

We contacted Bulgarianproperties and got the ball rolling by reserving a one-bed apartment. They have so far been excellent in that they have always kept us informed of the progress of the development – they have even installed a web cam which takes a couple of still pictures each day for us to view. When the apartment is ready, for a reasonable fee, they will manage the letting and upkeep for us.

Payment is in four stages – 15%, 35%, 35% and the final 15%. These are determined by the progress of the work and are paid to a bank account in Bulgaria. This does incur a small fee at both the UK end and the Bulgarian end.

We did some research on Bulgarianproperties on the Internet using the “Brits in Bulgaria” website for one. Everyone who has dealt with them said they where very good.

Our apartment will be ready by this time next year and we think that the price of around £32000 is going to prove to be a good little earner.

Word is that Bulgaria is set to join the Euro next year and are going for EU membership in 2007.

Summary: An investment opportunity we could not let pass.