Maslarevo and Orehovitsa

There are a few members here who live in the region north of Veliko Tarnovo and up nearer the Danube, so hopefully they'll reply! There are also quite a few Facebook groups for that general area where you may make more local contacts.

I found when we were looking that as Jim says, a lot of so-called agents just scrape other sites and have no link to the property owner at all. Many properties stay online for years after they are sold. Many more properties don't sell but are still online with very outdated photos that are unlikely to resemble the current state of the property. Also, the definition of "near" seems very flexible in website descriptions. Places described as "near" a city or town can turn out to be 30km or more away. A "twenty minute drive" for an estate agent may be closer to twice that for most other drivers.

There are some agents who are good and responsive, others who never seem to reply. If you have a mobile phone number for them, Viber is definitely more useful for making contacts than email or texts.

Villages vary a lot, even villages very close to each other can be totally different in character and facilities. Some have issues that might make then less desirable places to live and there's no substitute for actually going there and seeing for yourself. OTOH, I bought our place online on ebay without seeing it, in a part of Bulgaria we'd never gone anywhere near in six previous visits, and love the village and the region. But that was Providence rather than good management!