Buying an apartment in Sunny-beach

I rent out a couple of apartments - my advice is not to do it unless you find an apartment at a serious bargain price, which is getting more and more difficult.  Sunny Beach is dead out of season and if you want an apartment for your own use, even for a few weeks a year, you're not going to be able to let it on a long-term lease. The cost of having an apartment is higher than you perhaps think as you have to factor in a bunch of expenses: municipal tax, building maintenance fees, management fees (unless you're geared up to handle all the admin, finding holiday tenants, cleaning, redecoration/replacing broken items etc yourself), insurance, income tax, utility bills etc.  There's a glut of holiday lets there these days, so unless you have a seriously high-end property, or seriously low rent, you won't get 100% occupancy, even during the high season; you'll be lucky to break even, let alone get an attractive ROI.  Unless you live in BG and can handle most of the details of running a rental property, you'll just be funding some local property manager's lifestyle. 

Your best bet is to look at buying a long-term rental property in one of the cities, and renting a holiday apartment yourself as and when you want to visit BG. However, city properties also expensive to buy, maintain and manage. I know many people who fell for the lure of a holiday, or city, apartment that pays for itself but that isn't how it works, I'm afraid; every one of them has sold their Bulgarian property, the vast majority at a substantial loss, and invested their money at home...

@JimJ

Thank you for your advice.

That is what I've gathered when we visited Burgas and Sunny-beach in November, but real estate agents were trying to convince me that it's not the case.

I just couldn't work out how they make profit renting in such a short period. Also I was shocked how many people sell the same property, even when I contacted via alo or bazar websites.

When you mentioned about reasonable price,  is it below 1000 euros per square meter?

I guess to invest in the house we need to move there, but we are not in that position yet. Any advice on good villages in 50km radius from Burgas?

We are planning to go on holiday to Bulgaria in September and drive around the region.

Thanks

If you're really interested in Sunny Beach, you need to visit in the summer to see what it's really like when your prospective clientele are there. To be honest, I wouldn't touch anything there; it's pretty tacky during the season and there's a pretty iffy vibe, with appalling behaviour on public display (you may have seen some of it on TV - if not, I believe that a lot of it's still up on YouTube).

A reasonable price depends on how much you're willing to pay and what ROI you're looking for; I'd say you'd get a better return putting your money into Premium Bonds or a deposit account

I'm not too familiar with country properties in that area but I'm sure that other members can chip in with advice. "Good villages" really depend on your personal criteria but as usual that varies from person to person; the best general advice is to avoid ethnic areas and tiny/dead villages. Some like to have nearby neighbours of the same nationality, others want to be as far away from their fellow countrymen as possible.. Obviously, renting out a village house as a holiday let is pretty difficult, unless you want to try your hand at running a B&B

And just to add that there is an annual maintenance fee in the good complexes in Sunny Beach /ones with pools, restaurants, etc/, which depending on the size of the studio/flat can go up to 500-600 eu.

I don't want to be discouraging, but my impression is that Sunny Beach is awash with apartments for rent. Summer season only, winter there it would be very unlikely you'd find anyone to rent.  I believe the big tour companies stop using complexes once the building is a certain age, maybe five years or so, and new buildings are going up all the time to meet that demand for new apartments. So there's an oversupply of older apartments all vying for holiday rentals. Plus especially in areas popular with the binge-drinking British 18-30 crowd, you may find your apartment is regularly trashed.

Some of the newer developments do offer guaranteed rentals, but that would only be for the first few years, five at most. If you need to borrow at UK rates to buy, the returns they suggest wouldn't cover the repayments.

Following up from what Adriana said, if you did decide to buy a holiday apartment, the other thing to look out for as well as big maintenance fees is the complexes that aren't so well maintained any more. Even the best agents seem to include photos from when the complex was new in their listings ,showing lovely manicured garden and a sparkling pool. Maybe one photo shows a glimpse of the current more run-down and neglected condition. It's wise to make sure you see the property and know the fees before buying.

As Jim said, a city apartment that can have year-round tenancy would be easier and more likely to give a long-term return. But Bulgarian rents seem lower in comparison to property prices than they are in the UK, probably because mortgage interest rates are lower. Paying cash for somewhere could give some return on your investment, depending how much property management costs are. Borrowing money at UK interest rates to buy a Bulgarian apartment to rent out is unlikely to give an ROI for a very long time.

Cheap village houses are readily available, and if you want one to do up yourself as a residence or holiday home it can be a worthwhile challenge. But despite what the estate agents say, unless you can do all the renovation work yourself I don't think there's much profit to be made in doing up village houses to resell. It might be possible to make a profit fixing up a run-down house in a popular tourist city, maybe, but the price to buy in a good city will be massively higher even for a wreck. City prices have risen steeply.

@sdaniline

I'm with @JimJ on this one, I'm not convinced Sunny Beach is a great option.

Sunny Beach is the most popular Black Sea resort, so it has a lot going for it. But it's Party Central in summer, and then kinda dead in winter. But perhaps a few weeks of peak season rent might be enough to keep you happy.

But separate from renting, you want this for your own vacations. I think you have to try Sunny Beach and see if it appeals to you. We would definitely not want a place here (for the reasons above), and we'd much prefer a larger town like Pomorie or Sozopol. These have more facilities/services, they're a bit more family-friendly, and they're year-round places.

With the rise in property prices, now it's tough to find stuff under 1,000 euros / m2. This means a nice apartment for your own use is likely to be a pretty substantial investment... that's perhaps hard to justify just to spend a couple of weeks by the beach. You might find it's more cost-effective to find something on booking.com or get some kind of summer package tour.

Bansko is not on the beach, but as Bulgaria's largest ski/mountain resort, it's similarly very seasonal. However, Bansko is a very charming town, and the mountains are beautiful all year round. Thus, it's very livable as a long-term rental. Indeed, I was surprised recently to see a small (nicely furnished) studio advertised for long-term rental at 400 euros / month. But a long-term let is out if you want to reserve 2-4 weeks for yourself. It's just not possible.

We found a bargain studio in Bansko a couple of years ago, so we went for it. We like having it, and we love being in Bansko... even though we don't spend much time there. However, I think it's aggravation to hide our stuff and figure out a way to rent it for the weeks we're not there. We just lock it up and leave it, and we don't need to worry about it. But I'm lazier than the average bear, you might be more motivated. :-)

Thank you all. Very good advice. I'm glad I found this forum 😊

@sdaniline

You have a message

As regards to Pomorie..it's not an all year round place

We have lived there for 15 yrs..would never dream of renting out..too afraid of what we would find after.

It's a great town but is quite dead in the winter months...especially the town centre..hardly any thing open.until Easter..the odd bar..restaurant open..beach empty.very cold unless you have heating at home..that's not cheap either..logs to buy..storage a problem..and you need a lot..although a garage is useful..but around 17.000  euros.their not cheap.

But different clientele in summer..compared to SB

Lager louts..pissing off balcony's into the pool below

Truly the lowest of the low..many on benefits..I avoid it like the plague..my wife hates it..and she's Bulgarian..buy a place for yourself..and rent it to friends n family..and enjoy it for yourself.