Another Pleasure of City Life...

Oh dear , maybe public transport?

@Kath948381

It's why we don't have a car - too expensive to run, with the stresses that go with it, including parking.

Instead, here in Varna, we bought two garages and a parking space. The garages are in a block local to us (100 metres away). The parking space is in the block where we have a studio flat (Airbnb).  We have the exact same problem here, they're just about to (when they get round to it) instate a huge parking zone area in the area of our main home and that of the studio. Parking as it is, can only be described as frustrating - far too many cars.

So we knew what was going to come, because you see it in cities all over the world, especially London.  We rehtbboth garages and the space, bringing in an income of 500 Leva per month and at the same time, we have appreciating assets.  We bought the parking space for €12,000 and each garage was €22,000.  They're now worth €24,000 for the space and €35,000 each for the garages. The great thing too, is that garages and parking spaces have virtually no maintenance or electricity costs.  The only overhead is municipality tax and income tax on our earnings.  The garages are 33 Stotinki per month each, the space 15 Stotinki. Income tax is 10%. 

@cyberescue1

Interesting! So garages there are about the same price as here in Sofia, but the income seems rather less: in the area where this apartment is (and where I'm looking at a garage this afternoon) the average rent for a garage is €100 a month, with some adverts looking for 150.

The asking price for the one I'm looking at is €35K but I'm looking to beat them down to 32K if I can - Bulgarians haven't really got their heads around how to haggle, so let's see how that pans out...😁

I must be getting soft in my old age - the agent offered to knock €2K before I even asked, so 33K it is.... 😁

And another.....😱

https://tinyurl.com/46rumhte

That is crazy and tragic! How fast must the driver have been going to get airborne like that?

I am more and more glad our place is in a quiet rural village.

Back to the subject of "garages"....

The €33k one has dropped off the radar, partly because there's a sizeable question about the electricity supply: the seller wants to flog it with no separate supply, but with a promise* that "it will be okay". We asked for them to regularise the supply before purchase, but they're not at all keen to commit to that. The other "part" is that someone else is daft (and unwary) enough to fork out more...

With the coming of the new year - and the euro - the municipality has decided, from the first of January, to turn our current free for all and free-for-all parking situation into a "zone", ie you pay to park on the street (for a few hours) IF you can find a spot; if you overstay, or just chance your arm, the jolly old spider will haul you away.

Just to prove that the coming of the euro will have absolutely no effect on prices, the cost of parking in the new zone will be one euro (instead of the previous one Lev 🙄). Alternatively, you can buy an annual pass for 100 euros (200 for a second vehicle in your household, and too bad if you have three); this pass allows you to park close to your home IF you can find a spot - if you're too far from your registered address the spider will come for you anyway.

Luckily(?) we do have a cunning back-up plan: we were negotiating for another, better, garage - and toying with the idea of maybe buying both since the prices are already skyrocketing and people are offering their life savings, and firstborn children, for one near their homes. I suspect that what I'm about to say will have the folks looking for village fixer-uppers chortling into their G&Ts, but the current prospect - underground, larger, and with a storage area and electric shutter, is set to cost €47 THOUSAND!😥  That's well over twice what we paid about 8 years ago for a one-bed apartment in a swanky part of Sofia, admittedly a serious bargain even then.  I'm hoping that the current property bubble isn't about to burst...🤞

*Note that there's zero comeback on such a promise if it proves to be pie in the sky.

Incidentally, if anyone's looking for a fully-furnished village house, complete with guaranteed never traded company, close to Sofia and 5km from a sizeable town with Lidl, Kaufland etc (and has around €180k to spend), I'll probably be reluctantly selling mine in the new year.. (Yes, Admin, I will post an ad in the correct section once it's certain that I'll be parting with it. 😎)

47,000 EUR for a garage? Oh my! But it sounds a way better deal than the 33,000 one.

PS I hope my last post didn't come across as trying to show off - €50k (with the notary and taxes) is a significant expenditure for us, but hopefully also a good investment. Time will tell, I suppose 😁

I didn't see it as showing off. Chances are you won't lose money on it. And even if you did, you need to factor in the value of your time and Zlati's time and wellbeing. It's probably worth losing a few k to avoid years of annual frustration dealing with bureaucracy buying passes and the everyday bother of searching for a parking space.

When they introduced a similar scheme in our street in the UK to stop people parking here and walking to the station it took some of our neighbours many, many hours of hassle to get their permits. Hubby has a blue badge and our county has a free parking for blue badge holders rule, so we avoided that problem, we were assured that no permit would be needed. We just had to appeal parking tickets slapped on by parking wardens who didn't know the rules, instead. And it's still difficult to find parking spaces, despite the parking restrictions.

So buying even a rather spendy garage doesn't sound like showing off. You and Z have worked hard to get where you are.

But yes, it does make me chuckle, thinking what we've paid for our village house! Even after all we've done renovating it (total spend including purchase and renovations about 26,000 EUR) I doubt we'd be able to sell it for much more than 30,000.