Can a foreigner get a mortgage?

Hi Yuri, as I've explained on another thread, we bought ours through Mowlem (based in Ruse and tend to do the Northern Central part of BG). Their pay monthly worked with s £500 deposit, followed by monthly payments of £300 until it was paid off. Personally speaking, we love them! Have had no issues and they have also been doing work on the house that we are really happy with.

We always accepted that you can buy a house cheaper, but in a past life I was a business advisor, so get it completely...the house was sold for £12,900. At the time, we could have got a similar sized property/ condition/land for £7.5-8k....BUT at that point, we're splurging on several holidays a year and not knuckling down on savings. If you bulk in loan/mortgage interest, the fact that they clear the house out (I really liked that we saw the "shell", so knew what we were getting), drove us around the whole region viewing different towns and villages, helped us sort out bank accounts, setting up the business etc....I see as our "added value". We now own our own house fully and are very grateful to the psy monthly model.

This, in turn, has made us knuckle down and save properly.  I swapped roles in the same company to increase my income (he's in the military/civil service) and we've made this happen.

It's by no means right for everyone, with the total property price clearly being a limiting factor, but more than happy to discuss further about the pros and cons.

@Yuri1976

My impression is that most expats are cash buyers. but I'd guess it's possible to get a mortgage even as a (legally resident) foreigner. (I didn't try for a mortgage here, but I got a couple of mortgages in Cyprus after a couple of years as a legal resident. It wasn't easy though.)

The vast majority of property offers are conventional sales, with cash or bank financing, and transfer at the notary within a month or so.

The main pay-monthly providers are the Ebay guys, specializing in Brits. That's Mowlem (as recommended by @nikkinackynoodles and others), and BulgariaDirect (the larger one, they've been on Ebay selling Bulgarian properties for a long time). There are many members here who have purchased from them.

The appeal is the obvious one: a bit of financing without the aggravation of trying to persuade a Bulgarian bank to give you a mortgage. But these are village houses for you to renovate, rather than new-build apartments or houses in a city (so, 10k-40k euros, typically, rather 100k-200k). Bulgarians (broadly speaking) want to be near work/city, so you need to have savings or passive income (pension, rents, dividends, etc.). Or be location-independent as a remote worker making good money from abroad.

As well as the financing, these folks are good at finding properties with "good bones". They're mostly dry, solidly-built houses with a good-sized garden, and often with the privacy of big garden wall. They know what appeals to many British buyers, and can find it. Usually in good villages too (BulgariaDirect mostly around VT, Mowlem mostly around Ruse). They're both helpful to new residents/owners, and can also assist with the renovation.

I'm a big softie, so that's too rustic, and too much hard work for me! :-) Instead, we had to search for more expensive properties that had been tastefully (surprisingly challenging!) renovated and furnished... and then plonk down my wodge of euros at the Notary. :-)

tastefully (surprisingly challenging!) renovated and furnished...
-@gwynj

Oh yes! Bulgaria seems to have two extremes with houses, the very rustic village places or ones that have been so blinged up they make my eyes hurt!

Yuri, it's probably possible to get a mortgage, but I think you may find there's an enormous amount of bureaucracy to wrestle with just to open a bank account, let alone to get a mortgage.

The pay-monthly deals offered by several sellers aren't mortgages in the legal sense but more like rent-to-buy schemes. There's no credit check, the buyer pays the deposit, signs the contract, and gets the house keys along with the right to use the house (also full responsibility for all related costs like utilities, council tax, etc). But the house belongs to the seller until ownership is transferred after the final payment, and if payments are missed, the rights revert to the seller and the buyer loses what they already paid. So there's a small element of risk. I do think most sellers would understand a temporary case of delayed payments if they were contacted in advance, of course. The other risk is spending time and money doing up the house, the seller goes bankrupt, and the buyer may not be able to get the ownership. But life is full of risks, and most of the sellers offering this are long established and unlikely to suddenly go out of business.

I'm buying with Bulgaria Direct -- a village house on 2/3 acre -- and have found them excellent to deal with, though like all estate agents the photos and descriptions focus on the positive aspects and overlook any issues.

Hi All,

as a frst property in Bulgaria  would go for cash in hand. I think spending hundreds of thousands is too much of a risk for a couple of reasons:

• you never know, you might get bored and want to move out.
• As I said I have seem high prices from time to time but really not a reason to Why.
• Most ''renovated'' house I have seen seemed extremely cheap and not of good taste (I know taste is personal)

The best route for me will be to buy a relatively inexpensive property with a good setup and make it the way I want. But I was asking for options because I have been wondering in case of properties right on the edge of my budget or likewise...I might want to try a little mortgage or monthly payment or hybrid and save some money to cover costs for renovation.

High prices are most often down to location. Anything near a major city, the coast, or a popular mountain area will sell for far more than an identical property in a village a long way from a big town. Or in the same location, one house might be well renovated and the other house looks okay in the carefully angled agent photos but has significant problems that will cost a lot to fix.

Take your time, keep looking, and you will start to get a feel for what the prices "should" be. Do bear in mind that the cost of building materials and renovation work has risen a lot. I'm finding the work my house needs is costing quite a bit more than I anticipated.

The sellers offering monthly payments will usually accept a higher deposit in return for smaller monthly repayments or fewer repayments, I know Bulgaria Direct does and Mowlem may well, too.

I can't recall if you said or not - have you been to Bulgaria and had a look around? Which areas appeal most to you?

Great advice from all on this post

Mine was easy because i didnt want a village mountain life..but a coastal one

So bought an apartment.

If you are going to buy..you will need residency and an lichna karte...

Bg isnt a country you can just walk into.

There are regulations etc.

Good luck in whatever you want to do

But visit first in an area you choose to live..

If you are going to buy..you will need residency and an lichna karte...
Bg isnt a country you can just walk into.
There are regulations etc.
-@wtruckyboy

I'm not sure this is quite accurate. Yes, there are regulations, especially for residency. But not so much for buying a property. The original poster is Italian, so as an EU citizen won't need any extra paperwork to buy property in Bulgaria, only if they decide to make it their country of residence.

Non-EU citizens don't need residency or a lichna carta to buy property, either, though they may choose to buy property as a first step to getting residency. My understanding is that non-EU citizens can buy an apartment with no land with no additional paperwork required beyond the usual legal work for transfer of ownership, or will need to set up a Bulgarian company to buy a house with land.

A non euer.can buy an apartment..but cannot own the land...my wife is bulgarian so we dont have that issue.

Tbh i dont know the way to buy  in bg

Only the way we did it..and the lichna karte was one of those ways..hence why i have one..and i can open a business with it.

I dont think anyone can just walk in and buy a property..and live here without some kind of control or paperwork..just my opinion.

You're right on the "live here" part. Even EU citizens need to do some paperwork for that.

But buying property is a completely separate thing and doesn't require residency to do it.  EU citizens have no more paperwork to do  than a Bulgarian would to buy a property.  A non-EU citizen can buy an apartment provided land is not included, but needs to set up a Bulgarian company to buy a house with land. But they absolutely don't have to have residency or a lichna carta first.

@nikkinackynoodles hi we was looking at the buy monthly homes as we are in a rutt renting in England but want to retire to bulgaria we have a bit of savings but would probly need to renovate so the buy monthly we could do onto of renting here till we retire in couple of years I was a bit sceptical as it all seemed to easy but gave seen a few good reviews .Are household furnishings like bathrooms /flooring etc cheap to buy and have installed out there Also iv seen posts about poeple buying and leaving to come home and the house been striped by gypsy community what areas would you recommend we was looking around veliko area villages also where abouts is the pay monthly agent sorry for long post and questions xx

@Jeanettebarns61

The two main pay-monthly sellers are Mowlem who mainly sell houses in the area to the north-east of VT toward Ruse, and Bulgaria Direct, who sell in the central, north-east and south-east areas. Both these companies put their properties up on ebay and have members here who've purchased from them. Unless specified otherwise, most of the houses offered on pay monthly, espcially very low priced ones, will need a fair bit of renovation work doing, so you need to look carefully at the photos and ask questions about things that aren't clear.

Some areas are worse for thefts so you also need to research the village before committing to buy anything. Most villages should be safe, but some are safer than others.

Bulgarian online sites like emag and Praktiker are good for looking up the cost of building materials and furnishings. Like everywhere, inflation is an issue and the cost of building materials has risen a lot.

I hope you find what you're looking for!

@Jeanettebarns61

Great advice from @janemulberry, thank you.

The "gypsy" problem is a bit overstated in my opinion, as I'd guess that they might be less than 5% of the population. And mostly they prefer to be in/near cities and larger towns (for obvious reasons), rather than a small village.

In any case, the pay-monthly sellers typically have solid houses in fairly nice villages, and it's unlikely they would offer anything which is in/near a "gypsy" zone.

As for Veliko Tarnovo, it's a lovely region with a beautiful main city (Veliko Tarnovo itself). It has been deservedly popular with Brits for many years. But that means it's harder to find a nice property at a good price. But if you can, it's certainly a place where I'd expect you to be able to retire happily.

Gabrovo (the neighbouring district to the south) gets a lot less attention, but it's a very nice city too, and the surroundings are wonderful as this is the north side of the Balkan Mountains. This district includes Dryanovo which is famous for its monastery.

It's not our area (too far from Plovdiv, and driving over the Balkan Mountains is very tedious), but, by coincidence, we were up there this weekend and stayed in the centre of VT. It's a lovely city and the Tsarevets Fortress is a fantastic sight! We saw several pretty villages nearby, and many have good road access to VT so you can do your weekly shopping at Lidl. We returned from VT through Dryanovo, Gabrovo and Shipka and it was a very scenic drive, with breakfast on top of the mountains at the Shipka Monument.

We saw another Expat member while there, as they recently purchased a village house from frustrated owners who decided to return home. So this was mostly renovated and they could move straight in. They are very happy there and said they could not imagine ever returning to the UK. We also viewed one of the current pay-monthly offers which had a huge plot of land, lovely traditional stone barns, and great views to the hills behind. It's a property with lots of potential, but would require a very substantial investment to rebuild the main house (a ruin) and/or convert the barns. On top of 15k to buy.

There is civilization (cafes, restaurants, supermarkets, hospitals) elsewhere, so I'd suggest that one could look in two districts, rather than just VT city plus its immediate surroundings. 40km north of VT you have the small towns of Polski Trambesh and Pavlikeni. 50km south-west you have the cities of Sevlievo and Gabrovo (both Gabrovo district, both slightly smaller than VT). And 45km to the south you have the small (but pretty) towns of Tryavna and Elena. Including all of these gives you a much bigger zone of potential villages that you could consider.