Where to consider moving for a more self sufficient lifestyle ?

@ButterMyPaws19

Hello and welcome on board !

Please note that I have created a new thread from your post on the Bulgaria forum so that you may better receive some feedback from members.

All the best

Bhavna

@ButterMyPaws19

Well I have property in the Rila mountains, in Samokov which is also a rural area, big potato growing area but winters are harsh.   I also have property on the black sea in Byala Varna.. my Bulgarian friends took me to the other side of Dobrich which they said was a farming area and from what I saw it certainly is .. quite remote from life that's for sure .. black sea tends to be much milder in winter.  But I don't have experience iof Dobrich in winter time

Phil

@ButterMyPaws19

Costs have similarly doubled (or more) in Bulgaria... but from a much smaller base. I have some previous experience in UK, Spain, Germany and Cyprus... and I find life much cheaper and easier here.

Bulgaria is also very laissez-faire, especially in villages, and it's quite relaxing. I don't miss the letters from the local Mayor I got in Germany demanding I clean up the "schmutz" in front of my house. :-)

Philosophically, you may have reasons for being off-grid, but Bulgarian utilities are very cheap so it's not a practical necessity. However, you can still get away with a traditional septic tank (rather than the more expensive, cleaner, modern ones demanded in much of Europe), and there doesn't seem to be any obstacle to drilling your own borehole. Solar panels are also getting pretty cheap at Praktiker now.

Bulgaria has plenty of fertile land, and a long growing season. Our village house is in the Stara Zagora province, next to the Balkan Mountains, and it's a beautiful region. My neighbours have gardens full of vegetables, nuts, and fruits... along with a menagerie of cats, dogs, cows, goats, hens, geese, rabbits, pigeons, terrapins. With the dogs' frequent barking, the early-morning rooster crowing, the pigeons cooing, and the annual flock of house martins twittering, you definitely gotta like the sounds of the countryside. :-)

If you're Permanent Residents of France (granted after 5 years, normally) then there's a simpler process for residence in Bulgaria. If you don't have your PRs yet, I'd suggest hanging on for those before doing the formal residence application. But nothing stops you from visiting (up to 90 in 180) and buying a property in the meantime.

@ButterMyPaws19

Hi and welcome to the club! I'm English and bought my French renovation project in 2007. I finally retired and moved over in June 2022 and I'm now hoping to move to Bulgaria later this year. Like you, I've noticed a massive increase in prices, particularly food prices and it's making life difficult here. As a result, it turns out that my pension isn't stretching as far as I'd hoped and my project is now stalled and likely to be for the foreseeable future. Good luck with your plans and if you want to chat, please pm me.

Elaine

    Hi, we are English (hubby and I) early retirees, who had moved to France pre brexit but are now looking to move to Bulgaria for a new adventure. We moved to rural France for a quieter, more self sufficient, as off grid as possible, life but it is proving harder and harder to do here and the cost of living has almost doubled in our 10 years here. We want to find somewhere and build an off grid (as much as possible), self sufficient, homesteading lifestyle before we are too old to do so.
   

    -@ButterMyPaws19

I think you're likely to find what you're looking for in Bulgaria! It certainly offers opportunities for plenty of adventure.

There are still inexpensive village houses available (though most need a lot of renovation work), and it seems that in smaller villages the officialdom is quite relaxed about what people do, as long as it doesn't affect anyone else. Many older Bulgarians in the villages still live a mostly self-sufficient lifestyle, with water from their own well, extensive fruit and veg gardens, and livestock.

In the area our house is in (Dobrich region in north-east Bulgaria, very agricultural) most village houses come with larger land than some other regions. At least 2000m2 (1/2 acre) of land seems to be the norm and some have more. Many villages also still have common grazing land available on the village outskirts. The main drawback to the region is that it can be quite dry, and most houses won't have their own well because the water table is very deep, made deeper sadly by bigger farms being given huge water rights and draining the aquifer. More people are getting into rainwater collection for that reason, though it's not the norm in most of Bulgaria.

We haven't made the move yet but are preparing to do so as soon as I get my pension and can apply for the retirement visa. I intend to set up rainwater collection, solar panels for electricity, and a composting toilet, as well as recycling grey water on the land. The half acre I hope to coppice for firewood won't produce all we need for wood heat and cooking, but will help.  There shouldn't be any issue with the council at all over doing any of this, the mayor is very relaxed about implementing EU regulations. As the house already had electricity and village water connected, we'll keep those connections too.

I believe that the process to get building permission for a new build can include a lot of bureaucracy, so looking for a property within the village boundaries that is in regulation will make things simpler. If there's a ruined house on the land, provided it shows on the property map, you can build to the same footprint without needing building permission. Or there are plenty of older houses in need of renovation. If you want somewhere isolated rather than a village home, I believe on land zoned as forest it's permitted to build a structure of light construction that's movable and not directly built on the ground, so a wooden house would be okay, a brick or cob house wouldn't.

I think there may be some members here doing the fully off-grid thing, so I hope they see your post and respond!

Hello.  My wife and I are hoping to do something similar.  We're still in the UK for now.  Looking at relocation in around 18 months or so.   Do you have any tips on places to search for rural homestead type property.  Kind regards James.

@jasmith837

Most houses are in, or on the edge of villages. I was originally looking for a rural property, but they are difficult to find....not impossible, but they don't come up very often. My advice would be to start looking around on the internet now and see what comes up. At least it will give you an idea of what's available and help you to work out what areas suit you best.

Most of Bulgaria is rural, and many village houses are mini-homesteads! The only regions that probably wouldn't work are the coast (too expensive) and the mountains (growing season too short). That leaves most of the country! Which regions to look at really depends what you're looking for -- preferred climate, amount of land, proximity to major cities...

It's not so common to find larger acreages that can be built on, and I believe land zoned agricultural is very difficult to get building permission. If you're looking for 1/2 acre to an acre or so, which Bulgarians consider more than enough to intensively farm to produce most of their food needs, then village houses with either an existing house or a ruin, tend to be far easier to find. There's generally no problem getting permission to rebuild or renovate or add extra outbuildings. Most village houses will have old fruit trees, sometimes amazing barns and animal shelters, and the remains of a vegetable garden.

Where to get an idea of prices and regions - some of the established ebay Bulgarian property sellers from time to time get good homestead type properties and also YouTube seems to be a good place to look for homesteading property for sale. Estate agents like Bulgarian Properties tend to specialise is apartments in the more touristy areas and main cities but do also have village or rural properties.

@ButterMyPaws19 yeah you want to go over now when the properties are cheap because in time to come the properties will go up in price it's quiet now in Bulgaria but you want to get over there when the prices of the houses is cheap because I think when it picks up I think all the prices gonna go up I live in England and I have just bought two houses for nine grand in time to come up houses is all going to go up if I were you I'll get it now when it's cheap

@gwynj

Thank you, this is really helpful information.

Having delved deeper,  we are already seeing the benefit of being in or near a village rather than totally remote (though we do dream of having a little bit of coppice-able woodland to supply or supplement our fire wood), of not going quite as high into the mountains as we originally had thought of, and of being connected to the services, at least to start with, giving us time to build an off grid system gradually, as a back up or permanently if we feel the need.

We do have our 10 year permanent residency cards for France, valid until 2031. I would be very interested to find out where I can find more info on whether the process of moving with a valid EU PR card is simpler than the normal process for non eu people.

    Most of Bulgaria is rural
   

    -@janemulberry

For me, this was a big surprise. If you come from a densely populated Western European country (UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, etc.) Bulgaria is quite a change. It's not a big country, but it has a very small population, and I'm guessing 70% or more live in the cities. I'd say it's similar to Scotland or Scandinavia.

If you want to work, then you probably have to be in, or very near to, one of the big cities (Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas). If you have a pension (or other passive income), or can work remotely, then you can go much further afield. Bulgaria has excellent internet connectivity/mobile coverage, so most of the countryside is possible... and Bulgaria has lots of small (5k-20k population) towns where you can stock up and grab a coffee, if you have house maybe 15-20 km away. Our village house is a bit closer (10km) from Kazanlak which is a bit larger (50k ish), but I like Bansko too, and I think it's plausible to live there too (Bansko's more like 10k, but Razlog is next door with 20k).

We kinda stick to the corridor Bansko-Plovdiv-Kazanlak, so I don't know all of Bulgaria. In this area, I'm struck by how nice the scenery is with the Pirin National Park (Bansko), The Central Balkan National Park (Karlovo/Kazanlak), plus the Sredna Gora hills (between Kazanlak and Chirpan) and the Rhodopes (south of Plovdiv into Greece). It's kinda empty and unspoiled, and there are loads of tiny villages in these areas. We've driven to the coast, and down into Turkey a couple of times too. The Black Sea coast is a great option, and the region down by Elhovo/Topolovgrad towards the Turkish border is pretty too.

@ButterMyPaws19

Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria Act

https://www.mig.government.bg/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/foreigners_in_the_republic_of_bulgaria_act.pdf

There's a separate chapter (3, Article 33a onwards) on folks with PR ("long term") elsewhere in EU. I think it's pretty similar to the requirements for EU passport holders in that you apply at the local migration office with proof of funds, proof of health insurance, and proof of address.

Article 33a

(New , SG No. 29/2007)

(1) (Amended, SG No. 9/2011) A foreigner w ho has received a long-term residence permit for another European Union Member State may receive in the Republic of Bulgaria a long-term residence permit for the Republic of Bulgaria:

1. if he/she is a w orker, employee of a self employed person in the Republic of Bulgaria;

2. for the purpose of study, including professional training in an educational establishment;

3. (new , SG No. 9/2011) for other purposes.

Fabulous, thank you. Would we still need to start a company to buy a property? (I can't see that info in the pdf, but I've been up all night and a bleary eyed 🤦‍♀️)

You area sounds brilliant, lots of unspoiled nature right on your doorstep. We initially wanted to get as high in the mountains as possible but have realised that is probably not practical (or sensible) though we'd like some elevation and views. So we think we are looking for a small village not too far (10 to 20km from a small town with a good veg market), somewhere with 4 seasons, warm summers, snow in winter, quiet, peaceful (the 'noisy' country sounds are perfect for us, not like our new neighbours who have moved to the country only to complain about the cows, the Cockerells and the 'country' smells. We keep saying we've got our very own 'Goodlife' comedy, we are Tom and Barbara while the neighbours are Margot and Gerry 🤣🤣). We like our own space and company but be close enough to mingle too. We are planning to visit sometime in the next few months to check it out and assess the realities. 😊

@janemulberry 

Many thanks for your reply.  Our ideal place would probably be around 3 acres.  It seems most of the property I've seen so far is 1/2 to around an acre.  It would be great if I could get some woodland/ forest,  pretty close by.  We'll be heading over in May,  starting to get a feel for where we would like to be.   Original plan was for Portugal,  but unfortunately I think I have missed the boat on that one.  Accidentally found Bulgaria and I have been blown away with what I've read so far.  Just need to get boots on the ground and find a nice quiet village.

@ButterMyPaws19

Hi.  After reading your post,  it pretty much exactly explains what my wife and I are hoping to find.  Happy hunting,  and please share any special places that you discover.  We'll do the same.  Good luck.

@jasmith837

I believe it's possible to find village outskirts properties or old farms with a house or building rights on 3 acres or more, so you should be able to get something if that's what you want. But you'll find you have a lot more choices by considering a house on 1/2 to 1 acre and then buying aditional land nearby.

My main house is on a 1/2 acre block, and I also have another 1/2 acre elsewhere in the village with a tumbledown house on it that I hope to develop into a coppiced woodland. There's also an existing small somewhat neglected black locust coppice right next to my main house, which I would love to buy if I can find who owns it and they're willing to sell.

My Bulgarian neighbours have close to an acre for their main property and are self-sufficient in everything apart from dairy and grain, even growing enough corn to feed their chicken flock (they sell their excess eggs and meat chickens). They also have a four acre orchard elsewhere in the village and make gallons of jams and fruit juices to use themselves and sell. Another neighbour only has a 1/2 acre house block, but runs a dairy cow on the common grazing land up behind our houses, and makes a small income selling homemade sirene, the Bulgarian white cheese. I think many villages and villagers have similar set ups. My only regret about the location we ended up with is that the nearby town has a rather poor market with very few sellers.

There are lots of possibilities, and Bulgaria is a big country with lots of empty rural properties due to the movement to the cities, so I am sure anyone looking to have a small homestead will be able to find something!

Good luck to both you and @Buttermypaws19 with your searches. The right place will be out there, for sure.

@jasmith837

I'm a lot more skeptical than @janemulberry! :-)

3 acres (in old money) = 12,000 m2 or just over 1 hectare.

That's definitely not a residential plot, as the majority of these will be 1,000-2,000 m2 or thereabouts.

Our village house has 900 m2, but it's completely enclosed and private, and relatively secure. A huge plot will be open, unless you spend a huge amount on external walls, or have a separate walled plot within it. The cost of building walls is not to be discounted, so it's a big plus to have a decent wall already in place. Additionally, the back of our house opens on to the common land surrounding the river, and I'm pretty free to grab land here to make parking, or put up an extra garage. I doubt anyone would care if I fenced a bit off for grazing goats, or just having an apple orchard. My neighbour grazes goats there, but doesn't fence anything.

Our neighbours haver similar sized plots and they squeeze in a LOT of fruit/veg and animals, so I wonder how big a plot is strictly necessary. Even Old Ivan (last neighbour) who has something more like a smallholding, probably has less than 3,000 m2 (and still doesn't use most of it, except for cutting the grass on his meadow as silage). And he's the one who takes his goats out on the common land.

BulgarianProperties is a large and reputable agent, and they have lots of listings all over Bulgaria. Their website is also very good, so it's helpful as a research tool. They allow filtering on land size. I did a quick search for all properties over 4,000 m2. There are a few properties in the 4k-8k m2 range.

It might be an interesting search, here it is:

https://www.bulgarianproperties.com/Search/index.php?sadx=1&stown_text1704353358=Choose&squarter_text1704353358=&stop_text1704353358=&spredlog=in&sdevv_text1704353358=&minprice=&maxprice=&minarea=&mingarden=4000&minbedrom=&skeyword=&sref_no=&c=Search&srtby=2

I would personally compromise on the land size, in order to get a decent house in a decent village with a decent wall. Walls and houses are expensive, and I'd rather have something already there, that I can live in, and store my stuff in (even if I have to improve it). Similarly, I'll have water and electricity working immediately, and I can figure out my off-grid alternatives later. You might prefer to grab one of these options with 7,000-8,000 m2, and accept the compromises (unfenced, dilapidated house, less desirable location).

You can get very big plots, for sure, but they will likely be agricultural or forest land. And you won't have a house, or walls, or electricity, or water... and restrictions on doing so... and high costs if you can/do.

Picking a nice house with a nice separate plot (nearby), will be even more difficult (nearly impossible). I would again suggest focusing on a good house in a good location with a good wall and a decent-sized residential plot (1,000 m2 to 3,000 m2).

I wanted a bit more land with our house... but now I'm there, I find even 900 m2 is a PITA (pain in the you-know-what). :-) And if I want more, I can grab some common (discreetly, of course). But it's hard to overstate what a great house and great village/location this is (more by luck than judgment, I admit)... it would be impossible to buy something here with a huge plot. And many of the available huge plots are in places I would DEFINITELY not want to live.

As well as the common land zone behind the house, there is agricultural land below us (to the south of us, just 2 houses away), and on the other side of the river. There have been agricultural plots available, some appearing on the bailiff's bankruptcy offerings recently. But not often, and they didn't show up on OLX (big Bulgarian property site, also worth a look) or BulgarianProperties. If it had been our dream, I probably could have made more effort to find the right folks in the village and grabbed something (I know a couple of smaller plots were recently purchased just beyond my neighbours). I would say that I could have picked up an extra 5,000 to 25,000 m2 over several plots, not too far apart. But as it's a good (= expensive) village, even this agricultural land would have cost me another 50k-200k euros maybe. Not cheap! Even so, this would be the route I would recommend.

Alternatively...

I'd suggest searching for large plots of agricultural land within your land (only) budget. Then once you find some good candidates, you see how nice it would be to live there, and how expensive to buy a house/residential plot nearby.

OLX can search for agricultural land under 75k euros in all of Bulgaria...

https://www.olx.bg/nedvizhimi-imoti/prodazhbi/zemedelski-imoti/?currency=EUR&search%5Bfilter_float_price:to%5D=75000

Someone has 15,000 m2 for sale in a village near Obzor (on the Black Sea coast) for a mere 35k euros... plus he has another 8,500 m2 separately in the same village, if wanted. Black Sea coast is great, should be able to live there no problem. :-)

Going back to BulgarianProperties, they allow for searching for all land, within a budget, over x m2. Here's my search:

https://www.bulgarianproperties.com/Search/index.php?sadx=1&stown_text1704353358=Choose&squarter_text1704353358=&stop_text1704353358=&spredlog=in&sdevv_text1704353358=&minprice=&maxprice=&minarea=&mingarden=4000&minbedrom=&skeyword=&sref_no=&c=Search&srtby=2

This shows up a few options, including a total bargain of 25,000 m2 for only 15k euros up near Troyan. Troyan is on the north side of the Balkan Mountains, very nice... and pretty sure you could find a place to live nearby.

That's a lot less than land in my village would cost. And getting a decent house nearby might be 50k-100k.

@gwynj

Many thanks for taking the time to post.  Might need to put the wife's dream

Of goat's and alpacas on hold.   Being honest,  I have no idea as yet where abouts

We will be looking.  Definitely rural in/on mountains.  I've lived in Canada for a couple of years and we like the idea of a real winter again.  Nice proper snow. We aim to be as self sufficient as possible,  in this I am hoping to be able to buy some woodland,  enough to keep us in firewood. 

Thank you for the links.  Give me a lot to look at and help with research.

Kind regards James.

@jasmith837

We all try to help. :-)

I would not buy forest in order to have firewood. You can buy (and get delivered) firewood pretty much ready for action, and it's not massively expensive (certainly when you factor in how easy it is). :-) If you enjoy chopping wood directly from the tree, you'll find many Bulgarians just wander into the nearest forest and help themselves. I'm guessing it's more-or-less illegal, but with more-or-less zero enforcement.

I'm on the extreme of the lazy spectrum, so logs are too much aggravation, and I put in a pellet stove. It came with a remote control, and starts very easily... but I was shocked to find that they don't empty themselves! So, unless it's really arctic, I just bang on the AC units. :-)

December (in Plovdiv apartment), we had the AC on 24/7, all month. It's on 18 if we go out, and back up to 22-25 (depending on how cold outside) if we're in. The electric bill was 40 euros. Try doing that in UK, France, Germany, Spain, Cyprus without getting a heart attack when your bill arrives.

@gwynj I have to say, thank you so much, even though your answers/posts are not directly to me, your information, in just 2 short days, has been invaluable and probably already saved us money and maybe even a costly mistake. 😊

Gwyn, as always, is right!

There are far fewer options for larger pieces of land with houses. And most people, unless they're experienced smallholders or farmers, find that managing an acre is plenty enough. I'm told the previous owner of my house grew all her own fruit and veg, kept rabbits and chickens, had sheep for milk, meat, and fibre, and kept a donkey to pull her cart, all on the 1/2 acre, supplemented by grazing her sheep and donkey on the common grazing land up behind the house.

So it's very possible you'll find you need less land than you think.

James, I feel alpaca might be problematic to manage in Bulgaria, mainly due to  the lack of experienced vets for their specialised needs. I read recently of someone in Canada who keeps sheep and alpaca and has big problems getting vet care for them. If your wife is set on alpaca, it would be wise to research whether there are alpaca groups in Bulgaria and where vets experienced in their care are located, and then use that information to guide where you look for land. Goats of course should be far easier to manage and get care for!

@janemulberry

Bulgaria definitely needs more alpacas. :-)

However, I suspect they are a lot more expensive than goats, and maybe not so tolerant of 40 degrees in a Bulgarian summer.

Right! They're certainly interesting creatures and their fibre is wonderful stuff. I love seeing them!

But their care needs are more complicated than sheep or goats,cand having an expensive and much-loved animal die for lack of experienced veterinary care would be a serious heartbreak.

Gwynj hit the nail on the head there. A big plot might sound like the bees knees, been there done that, never again. Everything grows like its on steroids in Bulgaria!

Just for interest...here is a search on Alo.bg for all houses currently for sale across Bulgaria which have yards above 4000sqm.

https://www.alo.bg/obiavi/imoti-prodajbi/kashti-vili/?p[423]=4000_&order_by=price-asc

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing that! I love looking at property listings, even if I have no intention of buying anything more!

There are some interesting properties listed. Most around the acre (4000 m2), but there are quite a few larger places with houses that could be renovated or rebuilt.

Just watch out for a translation glitch if you use Chrome and let it auto-translate! It's translating "decare" in Bulgarian into "acre" in English, so there are places where the heading says 4 acres when the actual metre area in the listing shows it's only 1 acre. 4 decares = approximately 1 acre.

@gwynj

I'd hazard a guess that alpacas don't taste nearly as nice as a tender kid (of the goat variety, - I suspect that today's Yoof wouldn't make a very appetising meal...)