Logistics of renovating a property on a cliff face

@Jules999

Haven't done it, wouldn't do it! Life's too short. :-)

Most everything (in renovation) is possible, but if it's difficult or requires specialists it's gonna be expensive. I had a quote for a small retaining wall recently, and it was 40 grand. Carting rubbish away is probably the easiest issue, as you can hire skips in most places... as long as your quaint old cobbled street has room for one!

If you've already bought something I wish you luck. Veliko Tarnovo is a lovely city, so hopefully it will prove to be a good investment.

@gwynj

Hi Gwyn, no we haven't made the purchase yet and are still mulling it over.  Renovations don't frighten us, we have done two now, but it's the logistics of doing it along that Gurko Street! We feel we probably have one more renovation project left in us, and what better place to do it 😊 The fact that it could also possibly work as a holiday let and provide us with some returns, is also an attractive proposition.. we return next week for a second viewing and hoping this will clarify things for us as we also have more questions for the agent.

Like Gwynj said, it won't be cheap due to the specialist required, and the safety equipment needed.

Removing rubbish is a matter of labour, how small do you want to break it down to and how far you need to move it.

Again, Everything is possible if you have deep enough pockets!

@Jules999

Great city, with some lovely old houses there. And a very scenic street, indeed.

I saw plenty of lovingly renovated properties there, so you're certainly not the first (or last) to consider it. If it's your dream project for the next few years, then it'll probably work out just fine (apart from cost/time overrun).

Even Gurko doesn't look bad if your house is on the street side, although it might be a bit tight for a skip. However, the cliff side looks a lot more scary (there are only a handful of houses on this side).

We stayed close by over the summer. Similar street, so right pain for parking. They'd renovated a 4-storey old house and turned it into 4 small apartments, which they rented out on Booking. These kinds of studios are a bit of a compromise I think, so I'm not wild out about them. But it's probably hard to rent out a whole house cost-effectively, and doing rooms typically gets you into B&B or Boutique Hotel territory, which seems like a lot more work. But probably more in keeping with the character of a period property.

But my views probably say more about me (i.e. I'm old and lazy and want an easy life) than about your project. :-)

Wow, that would be an exciting challenge! There are some amazing old houses along there. I don't know the answer but hope you can find someone who does. I imagine the renovation work wouldn't come cheap, but the value of the house once renovated would be correspondingly higher. A holiday let there is far more worth spending money on than a holiday let out in a distant village!