Good cities to live in Bulgaria

Hi there, I am interested in living in one of the villages south of Burgas.  Would u be willing to tell me how much my hubby and I will need per month in leva... in order to retire in one of those villages please 🙏? We r planning on buying a house 🏠 in the villages of Ravadinovo,  Rosen, Pismenovo,  Fazanovo, Velika ,Izgrev or Bulgari. Which one 🤔 is nicer  and livelier? We don't know the villages, but definitely need one with a coffee shop,  a grocery shop too, and a bit populated. I have heard that the region is boring out of season,  but that's what we r looking for precisely

I would say to live comfortable in the village 2-4000 bg leva if you already own a property. You will be constantly going to the nearby city to do errands, and for anything else. Need a car.Forget about the buses. They can be unreliable and not frequent or non existent.

I would not recommend to go too south of Sozopol. Villages/cities  around Burgas can be ok. Again , I will not recommend any village  if there is no central water( forget about wells- this is 21 century, not Middle Ages) and no sewage. Do your own research on that.And do not buy property that is suspiciously cheap because it will  be a dump( most likely collapsing, bad foundation, mould etc.) And get a property on a hill  away from rivers since flooding can be a serious factor in the south Black Sea. I think it is best to be 10 minutes away from a big city on the Black Sea.

I have houses in Samokov and Byala

Samokov has everything as it's a large working town..plenty of restaurants cafe bars. Not so good for teenagers if you like dancing .. summer mixed weather and can often be hotter than the Black sea when the weather is good .. does suffer from cold must and cooler at night summer  25 days and 10 to 15 at night average. Winter minus 5 to minus 10 days .. minus 10 to minus 20 at night average temp..  local highs are Borovets 10 minutes drive and iskar lake 15 minutes drive .. plenty of nice mountain villages with good restaurants ..

Byala is a small seaside resort with a lovely beach .. plenty of restaurants and bars.. fantastic sports facilities .. but all outside.. football full and five asside... Tennis volleyball .. running track.

45 minutes to Burgas and 35 to Varna By road..

Dies in the winter but apparently the T market stays open  as there are 2000 residents.. can be pricey for food in summer but prices drop outside of the main summer times.. Obzor only 5 km down the road which stays open longer because it has lots of hotels there ..

Some more notes on villages- some are abandoned, or some have very few residents. The lesser the residents the lesser conveniences. You will need to use wood for heating( not healthy) and slave away chopping wood.

Of course you can install air forced heating but it will cost you( I found an American company  that sell those units in Denmark that are EU compatible.There is no natural gas in the villages so electricity can be used only). Some people use air conditioners for heating. If you have a big house you will need powerful ones. Electricity outages can be a problem. Back up is needed.Some of the villages have certain amount of crime factor that needs not to be ignored.  So protections is needed: a few  sweet dogs to you only.Not all villages are served by alarm companies so when you travel abroad, your house is target of vandalism/crime.  If you are in a remote village internet may be non-existent or sketchy and furstrating. Any urgent repairs that come up can turn into nightmare of finding the right people. If you are good at do-it- yourself thing, you will be ok. Slides, flooding also can happen in a village. Bulgarian response services do not compare to the Western world so be prepared to be on your own if something like this happens. Emergency medical care can be slow and that can be detrimental. So , Bulgarian villages can be charming but if one buys there must do a serious research and not just be lured by prices. Yes, there are more modern villages- again  serious investigation of the area is needed. The prices of real estate have gone up in Bulgaria; it is not so cheap anymore but still quite affordable. If you get a mortgage the interest rates are still low.

The big cities are great options, if you want a lock-up-and-leave apartment, and access to city amenities. Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas are all good. Our preference is Plovdiv, a former European Capital of Culture, and we have our city pied-a-terre here. :-) But, for most expats, I think the city option is getting too expensive, as all these big ones are well over 1,000 euros per m2 (and heading for 2k).

It's a bit limiting just allowing 4 cities, there are plenty of smaller options. We like Kazanlak, Stara Zagora, Elhovo, Gabrovo, Veliko Tarnovo. Personally, I reckon anything over 50k population has a good range of services, and this gives you a lot more to choose from. Maybe you can even go as low as 10-20k (e.g. Chirpan, Polski Trambesh, Pavlikeni) as they'll have a supermarket at least.

Expats love village houses, and this can be a great option. I recommend villages within 10km to 15km of a nice town. Any further, and you will be driving 45 mins (or 90 mins in a bus) just to do your grocery shopping. Our village house is near famous Shipka in the Balkan Mountains. We're only 11km from the Lidl in Kazanlak, which is a very civilized little town (annual Rose Festival, UNESCO-listed Thracian Tomb, hospital, very good produce market, big supermarkets, and plenty of nice cafes and restaurants).

The larger the city you choose, and the closer your village, the more expensive it will be. 5km from Sofia will be massively expensive, while 25km from VT or Elhovo will be much cheaper.

I agree with gwynj that proximity to a big city is a plus.

I  personally like the outskirts of the big cities in Bulgaria. You can have a house and yard there. And  you can have  your privacy, pets, other animals and a nice garden.

It is worthy to pay more so you do not regret later when you pay too little for housing and hate the place.

We live only one life!    The French have a great saying:  " I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things" .

@TonyFF

That's a great point! The property programs on TV always bang on about "location, location, location!" but sometimes we forget this in our search for a bargain. :-)

@gwynj

I am just beginning my search for a retirement location. I am a single woman. I have seen the statistics in Bulgaria regarding safety. Overall, it is good. Are there any suggestions you have for a woman who wants to retire there, be safe, enjoys a warmer climate year round, and will be working with $2,000 USD?

Thank you.

@blessedhandsforGod

One Bulgarian winter will soon cure you of any thoughts of "warmer climate year round"; the coming one is also forecast to be colder than the last few we've had....

@blessedhandsforGod

Much of Bulgaria is safe for a single woman, but like all places, not everywhere is safe. I'm married, but have stayed in our village house numerous times for visits of 1-2 weeks on my own and travelled within Bulgaria alone with no problems at all. But I don't take any risks, like going out alone late at night in the city. Overall, I do feel safer in Bulgaria than in our UK town.

A warmer climate compared to what? The far south coast is the warmest area, but equivalent to US zone 8, no warmer. Much of Bulgaria, even only a little way inland, gets quite cold in winter. Bulgaria gets very hot in the summer, but winters are real. It's already dropping down to 40F overnight in my village, less than 30 miles from the Black Sea coast, and might drop as low as 0F in the coldest part of the winter. Maybe even lower, in a very cold winter. Further inland can get much colder.

Do you mean $2000 USD per month for your living expenses? Whether that's enough depends where you live and how simply you live, whether you own a property or rent, there are a lot of factors. Many people in Bulgaria get by on less.

There is an article in one of the BG newspapers this morning about a (presumably VERY fancy) apartment in downtown Sofia for sale at €16 THOUSAND/m²! 😯

There's no shortage of others at a bargain basement price of €4k/m² - the current average is apparently €2,750 and rising fast...but that of course includes "panel blocks" and dodgy areas.

PS Don't even think about living in a village if you're knocking on a bit and/or likely to need decent medical facilities. Even in comparatively large towns, the polyclinics and district hospitals lack comprehensive facilities and resident specialists, and if you need specialised treatment you're likely to find that you can only get it in Sofia. My wife's currently undergoing a long course of chemotherapy, and patients are having to travel to the hospital for treatment from all over the country, including all the other cities. If relatives want to travel to be near their loved ones (not to mention to provide "personal care", which Bulgarian nurses regard as beneath them) they're looking at either long daily drives or costly hotel/Airbnb bills.  Luckily, it's only a 20 minute drive from us....🙂

16,000 EUR per m2? For that money, I would expect extreme luxury! Hyde Park One, perhaps?

Unfortunately the need to travel for healthcare is not unique to Bulgaria. Our UK house is in a market town of 30,000 people. Yet to get a simple blood test earlier this month, something very basic, we needed to make a trip of 1 1/2 hours each way by public transport to the nearest hospital, because the GP surgeries don't provide phlebotomy services. So I doubt we'll be much worse off in our Bulgarian village.

And I checked to see what apartment prices are here. The cheapest listing for our town (apart from one apartment with a very short leasehold and one that's shared ownership) has an asking price of 165,000 GBP, for a small, rather ordinary 1 bedroom flat in an location that has a lot of traffic and has had issues with vandalism. The agent doesn't give the area of the apartment, but I would estimate it's no more than 40m2.

Bulgaria is no nirvana, and no one should move with the illusion that it is. But it still can compare well to other places.