The Harsh Reality Renovating In Bulgaria - New buyers beware

Based on my experience, I agree with all of this, unfortunately! We've found it's not always easy getting decent reasonably priced tradespeople to work on our UK house, but multiply that by a factor of ten for a very different country and not speaking the local language to any meaningful degree. 

Especially consider the advice to double or triple your expected budget. Even with the help from my neighbours, almost everything has cost more than the initial estimate, or the quoted price didn't cover everything I thought it did.

Deliveries can be veeeeery slow and unpredictable, and will usually dump everything at the front gate. Far higher quotes for non-Bulgarians are normal. Standards of work may not be what's expected. Workers will turn up when they feel like turning up, not when scheduled to turn up.

Without the help my fabulous neighbours have given, taking in deliveries, dealing with workers, making sure I get fairer prices, I don't think I could have managed to get anywhere with renovating my house. Or I might have, but I would have had to pay a far higher price to get it done. I'm very aware how blessed I am!

@janemulberry

Thanks Jane. I think your feedback will help a lot of people to remove the rose tinted spectacles. Hopefully people can use the info to make better informed choices 💞

I want to add -- I am 100% happy with my decision to buy a cheapie fixer-upper in Bulgaria, and we fully intend to move there as soon as we can get the D visa! Our experience overall is very positive.

But it's important people know what to expect, especially those hoping to buy a lower-cost older house and renovate it on a small budget. It can be done, but there will be plenty of challenges. The house will almost certainly need more work than anticipated and end up costing more than planned.

For those with either plenty of money to spend and/or a good range of building trade skills, the problems are less, of course, but it still won't be easy.

I suppose it depends on what you buy. We found something that we could do majority ourselves. Our triple glazed windows we had from order to delivery in three weeks. Our local general supplier delivers to our door in a day or two depending on product. We were told not to rely on local people in the village as they were unreliable.

Perhaps our previous experience of renovating a house in France taught us as my husband worked as an electrician and he often had to sort out other tradesmen’s mess ups who weren’t just expats but also French.  We admitted that we made an error by buying a house that needed too much renovation when you are working 7 days a week to earn your living.

Good luck with whatever decision you make.

@S25 - Sean

This is not my experience of Bulgaria. Moreover, I think your reaction/experience is much more likely based on the particular circumstances of your move here, and not necessarily through fault of Bulgaria or Bulgarians.

Specifically, you purchased a ruin/derelict property for (presumably) a small (relatively) amount of money. Such properties need a LOT of work to renovate them (or even make them basically livable), which, by definition, takes a lot of time and money. It's also a stressful and difficult environment as you have nowhere to live, and making it livable is a fairly urgent priority.

And, of course, most folks who buy ruins do so because they have very limited funds... which means, inevitably, needing much more than you paid for the house to pay for the subsequent renovations is challenging and incredibly stressful (as every bit of haggling over the next work stage can seem like a matter of life and death).

Large scale renovation projects are easier for expats who are proper DIYers, ready and able to do almost every aspect of the work. And have figured out a comfortable, quick-to-achieve baseline (e.g. decent caravan + one good room + plausible kitchen/toilet/shower facilities). And, most importantly, have a pretty good grasp of the likely costs of renovation (not just of the initial purchase) and already have that money (or most of it) to hand.

I've done a huge amount of work on our village house, and I've finished off multiple flats in Plovdiv from a Bulgarian Standard concrete box to a fully-finished, furnished, desres. It's cheaper than the UK, but it still costs a lot of money. (The flats worked out at around 400 euros/m2, which is a major chunk of money. And this is without any kind of big structural work, such as roof, double-glazed windows, insulation and render, rewiring and re-plumbing.)

I definitely needed to have an attitude readjustment. We're living in the poorest country in the EU, and most of the building work is simply not "first world" quality, and the timing (start/duration) can be very unpredictable. Moreover, Bulgaria real estate has been booming over the last few years, so all these guys have a ton of potential projects (and/or projects on the go simultaneously), so they've got no patience with anyone who wants to nickel-and-dime them or endlessly complain that their work isn't up to standard (or needs to be redone) or that they're taking too long.

The real estate boom here means prices have risen enormously, so there are very few bargain fixer-uppers left. But still so many stories of all the cheap Bulgarian village houses and YouTubers documenting their awesome new life in their 2k Ebay diamond in the rough. In our village (or the two neighbouring ones), you'll be lucky if you find a village house for under 100k, even when it needs work. This means anything (or almost anything) that you pick up for under 10k (maybe even 20k/25k) is likely to be a complete money pit (and more suitable to be knocked down than renovated) rather than a future gem.

@gwynj

The interesting thing is that there are quite a few renovated (to varying degrees of completion and/or standard) properties for sale which still represent good value. Buying a dirt-cheap renovation project is superficially attractive, and may be all that an incomer can afford, but it'll take a long time, and ever-increasing sums of money, to complete those renovations; it's much better to take a partly- or fully-renovated property off someone's hands because they've run out of money/health or suddenly remembered that they have kids "back home" or need the NHS.

It really is surprising how cheap some foreign-owned renovated properties are, even nowadays. I imagine that I'll sell my village place when my FiL pops his clogs, but luckily it's a very in-demand village and there's a constant stream of Bulgarians looking for property there.....😉

I think for those who come to Bulgaria with either more to spend upfront or very well established building skills, it's definitely easier.

After Sean mentioned in a different thread that he's looking to spend a bit more to get a house needing less major rebuilding work, I checked the RightMove listings for the seller we both bought from. They had some nice looking renovated places listed at not a lot more than the total cost of buying a wreck and fixing it up, but without all the aggravation. And those were on pay monthly, so would be discounted for anyone able to pay in full. That's the lower hassle way to go for anyone who can do it.

Those of us with less ready cash to spend hoping to buy a lower cost property and do it up over time need to expect a wreck in need of a lot to work, and come equipped with excellent DIY skills, lots of determination, willingness to deal with frustrations along the way, and a box of tissues for the inevitable tears.

But I'm confident for us it will turn out to be worth the frustration and tears!

Some brilliant points.

When I first bought the house, I did so mainly for the land with a view that if it costs more to renovate than the value, I'd rent a digger and knock it down. Keep the land tidy and save for a prefab. Completely unaware easy skip hire is not a thing in Bulgaria lol.

5k per year budget. Can do most works myself, at least with a labourer to assist.

My income stopped for 3 months, burned through my renovation pot to survive, tried getting back on track but my father's health or at least his ability to care for himself after a stoke kinda changed my home life rapidly. 6 week trips I'd planned were forced to become no more than a couple weeks away.

As a non driver 30km from a town, with a house that has no door number for deliveries, just getting materials to make the main structure water tight is not going to plan.

I don't blame Bulgaria or the people, it's just a different way of approaching things there. I can botch my roof for the winter, if I get windows installed. Get past winter and can then replace the timbers with a bit of help... from that point, so long as materials arrive on site will be fully capable of doing short bursts of everything alone.

A 20k budget first would definitely be the better option, but ya can't leave a house for 4 years while you save 500 a month.

If I was approaching this in UK, I'd have timbers and windows on site within 48 hours of ordering and be water tight in just 3-6 weeks. 🤣

Life gives lemons, I'm trying to make lemonade right now. Hopefully will have windows in the coming weeks and will figure it out, albeit slowly.

Appreciate everyone who shared their knowledge and experiences. You folks are awesome

Sean

It's tricky balancing everything when the budget is on the lower side and we can't just up and move there full time to sort things out! We have to trickle in the visits and the spend on the house.

I hope you can get things delivered as you need. Street names and numbers being meaningless in many villages can make this way more challenging. Is getting the delivery driver to meet you at a known location in the village and you guiding him from there an option? That's what my neighbours did with my big building material deliveries. There's a landmark shown on Google Maps down the street, they gave that address then met the delivery truck there to tell them where to make the actual delivery. It worked fine.

Also I hope your dad has made a good recovery!

@janemulberry

Absolutely you can arrange to meet delivery drivers in the village square, or somewhere else equally as recognisable. Satnavs are notoriously unreliable/clueless when it comes to street names in villages here - and giving exact co-ordinates doesn't help if the streets don't even appear on the maps.  However, you will almost certainly hit the "no BG phone number" problem again: companies won't send out their drivers against a promise that you will actually be waiting where and when you're supposed to be if they can't call you to confirm that you really are there...😎

It does need a Bg phone number they can call or Viber, yes.

I think my Bulgarian is almost good enough now to say "I'll meet you at the snack bar." (On the main road, on Google Maps in the correct place, and not much over 100 metres from our front gate!)

I finally managed to get a Bulgarian SIM after two failed attempts. The trick that worked for me was to not try to register it in the phone company's app or to top up online, which requires a residency card. The phone shop did the legal stuff of linking the SIM number to my passport, and I can top up by voucher at the village Post Office or the phone shop in town where I bought the SIM.

Now to improve my language skills so I don't need to keep relying on my kind neighbours!

I have a ViVa sim card, will need topping up at the paypoint in kaufland or online (if it lets me) to solve the phone thing.

Definitely have to meet the drivers, probably 2 streets away at the village shop. It's a mooch away on foot but probably no other option. I'm also trying to get a sign to put up in the garden and provide my own temporary address in Google maps. That will come on the next trip in winter I think.

Did wonder if to go through the process having the property put in cadastral map, but since none of my neighbors for at least 2 streets are in there, would be a complete waste of money until it's livable with utility services connected 😜

@S25 - Sean

I don't think it (mapping) will help, sorry.

All the deliveries (that I've dealt with anyway), work the same way. The driver (or HQ) wants to message (occasionally call) you to expect a delivery (e.g. today/tomorrow/specific date)... and it's polite if you let them know that you won't be there / need another day. And then the driver (usually not HQ) wants to call you (not message) when they are either already in/near your village, or soon (5-20 minutes) will be. The driver expects to meet you at the standard meeting point/landmark. None of them want to hunt around on Google Maps, or schlep around the village looking for me.

The only exception is occasionally there's a regular driver for your village/area with a particular supplier, and he remembers where your house is and comes direct. But that's rarely happened for me.

I agree, it is kinda annoying, but it actually works very well, and, in my case, walking up to the village fountain (our standard landmark,.. and easy to say in Bulgarian) is a 4 minute walk. The upside of the Bulgarian method (which I like) is that if they can't contact you (and then meet you), they don't deliver. Nobody leaves it outside on the ground, or in the bin, like the UK couriers are tempted to do. If Praktiker started plonking down your 2,000 euros of building materials outside your gate because you weren't home, you'd soon be begging them to revert to the current system. :-)

@S25 - Sean

I'm a little confused here:  if your property is one of the increasingly fewer which don't appear in the National Cadastre then it should be in one of the older local municipal plans. You should at least have a copy of the skitsa from the municipality with your notary act.  Either way, you'd be well advised to get it done ASAP - property can easily go walkies here and it could be difficult to prove title if someone else decides to register it.

whie l didn't need to renovate my house l still need to maintain it this also Involve s delivery and trades men

l struggle to find genuine workers

In June l ordered and payed for fence panels from Bigolage after a month they had still not arrived  ,l was then told they could unfortunately not supply them a nd to add insult to injury l am still waiting for my money back !

company's here have no after sale service

@JimJ - It's a strange one, it had the deeds and a land sketch together with the sale, but nothing of skips. The cadastral map for almost the entire village just shows as farmland with post code or numbers attached with dates going away back to the 1960s I think. Some of the houses are really well maintained, so would expect them all to be registered correctly. I'm guessing because it's so far into the countryside and half the villagers being old abbas and their family it just just gets overlooked.

Think a conversation with the mayor's assistant is needed when I'm next there, try figure it out.

Meeting at rhe local shop could work, would be a good way to make friends with the lady who runs the shop, she seems to know everything and everyone in the village.

Less confident about trades. Soon as I pass driving test and get a van half the problems will vanish. Will be funny driving on the opposite side though, been a few times I almost got ran over crossing road looking in the wrong direction for oncoming traffic 🤣

I agree with gwynj. Prices have shot up so much in Bulgaria over the years. I don't know what you are trying to achieve, but for your budget it might have been better to have gone for a country that is 10-15 years behind Bulgaria.

Budget would have gone further and you could ride the potential growth and development over the years.

@JimJ

I agree with you, and I think already (partly or mostly) renovated properties are usually a better bargain . Especially if being sold by a frustrated expat.

@JimJ
I agree with you, and I think already (partly or mostly) renovated properties are usually a better bargain . Especially if being sold by a frustrated expat. - @gwynj

I would agree with that, too, for buyers who can afford it. Anyone with enough ready cash to spend upfront would be wise to look at already renovated places. Though whether houses being resold by expats are bargains or not does depend just HOW frustrated the expat is and how much they need the money. Also how long the place has been empty and what mischief it's managed to get up to while unoccupied, as village houses are prone to doing.

I still watch the market, and I see a few fully or partly renovated places that appear to be excellent bargains, selling for what the owner probably spent, far less than it would cost to buy an unrenovated house and get the same work done today. Sometimes they've been on the market a while so are selling for the "old" price. Sometimes the renovations are done to the owner's taste but may not be appealing to buyers. Or occasionally it's because the seller doesn't need to get the best price for their Bg house and just want rid of it. 

There are some very nice but higher priced ones where it seems the seller wants to maximise their profits (moving back to the UK isn't cheap!) and is asking the current market price (or more!) on the place. But even so, that's probably not a lot more than renovating a house from scratch would cost, and far less aggravation.

And there are some that may have started off as nice, fully renovated houses, but while on the market have developed problems. There's a house that's been for sale a while in my village that makes me feel sad. From the pics it was beautifully renovated. Then it appears the roof leaked. It now needs roof repairs, new ceilings, new flooring in a few rooms. And it will be far worse now than the pics show. It has a nice new kitchen and bathroom, but with all the work that needs doing, it's probably not a good buy at the asking price.

I don't regret doing it the way we did, slowly tricking renovations into a very basic village house. Could be, like Mrs Doyle with her unwanted tea-making machine, "Maybe I enjoy the misery." Not that it's been misery, but there have been some challenges and occasional tears for sure! We'll almost certainly end up spending the same on our house as we could have bought an already renovated property for. But we didn't have the money to spend upfront, the renovations will be (mostly!) done to our taste and preferences, and it will feel far more "our house", because of the work and time we've invested in it. Plus I think we're more accepted in the village, more part of the community already, doing it this way. Three years today since I first visited the house. It's changed a lot since then, is now livable not just campable, but there's still plenty more to do.

A bigger budget opens up far more possibilities, for sure. It's still doable on a lower budget, but expect delays and frustrations and everything being harder than you thought it would be.

I know it's not a fair comparison, but I have been looking at Ukrainian village houses (out of interest, as you do).

The prices appear to be like Bulgaria in the early 2000s. Even just a few meters across from the Romanian boarder you can see houses with 10+ acres in great condition for under 10k (some absolute wrecks for under 400 pounds all in ).

Without the war, it's abit like Bulgaria back in the day. EU membership in the future , lots of infrastructure development still to come, potential budget airline routes to be set up in the future etc. The kind of place that in 20 years plus, looking back could be similar to Bulgaria development over the last 20 years (or potentially way more rapid).....for those with a very tight budget willing to take risks and embrace something different.

I know it's not a fair comparison, but I have been looking at Ukrainian village houses (out of interest, as you do).
The prices appear to be like Bulgaria in the early 2000s. Even just a few meters across from the Romanian boarder you can see houses with 10+ acres in great condition for under 10k (some absolute wrecks for under 400 pounds all in ).

Without the war, it's abit like Bulgaria back in the day. EU membership in the future , lots of infrastructure development still to come, potential budget airline routes to be set up in the future etc. The kind of place that in 20 years plus, looking back could be similar to Bulgaria development over the last 20 years (or potentially way more rapid).....for those with a very tight budget willing to take risks and embrace something different. - @Zooldrool

Or you might be scratching the old bonce in a few years, wondering what possessed you to buy property in the country where WW3 broke out.....😎

Everything in life is a gamble! For those willing to take the risk of losing whatever they invest, it might pay off. It doesn't tempt me, but then I'm 1. content with the house I already own, and 2. my biggest gamble is a 1 GBP Thunderball ticket a week!

Everything in life is a gamble! ......my biggest gamble is a 1 GBP Thunderball ticket a week! - @janemulberry

That's the biggest gamble that you know you're taking. 😎

No-one in Bulgaria knew that they were gambling their property, freedom - and their very lives - when the government threw in their lot with the Axis powers. Comrade Vlad has aspirations for the former Soviet-bloc countries, so don't forget to brush up on your Russki of an evening - it might yet come in handy...especially since it's clear that Mao was right about paper tigers! 😨🙀

Good thing hubby is something of a polyglot, in that case. He only claims fluency in French, but speaks better Russian than he does Bulgarian. And he's not bad in Mandarin, either. Who knows when that might come in useful.

Natives are no exception to this