Property purchase international credit transfer - HOW?

The only way would be to get a cash advance on your credit card into your regular current account then use bank transfer to pay. The reason no one will accept credit card payments is that is very easy for buyers to reverse card payments. But that's a very expensive way to do things, interest on the cash advance will be quite significant. It would be better to wait till you have the cash.

I would be very cautious about paying over a big chunk of money upfront like that. Check out whoever you're buying from very thoroughly first!

I'd be even more cautious borrowing money or using credit to buy a Bg property and pay any related expenses.  Houses in need of renovation are money pits. They need more work than you think and everything costs more than you think.

@janemulberry

I agree completely with everything you said.

Family and friends think I'm stark raving mad even considering buying a fixer upper in Bulgaria. Everyone keeps saying don't use your credit for fees just wait a while.

Maybe a silly in my part, itl take another 5 months to save fees, and I was planning to buy with cash by April, so I can spend a few months in autumn, start of winter out there doing something fun and useful lol. The term eager beaver probably describes my mindset 😂

How are prices for buying building supplies out there?

I see a lot of renovations need windows and doors, lots of render and plastering ect.

I'm okay for needing trades because I can do most construction and repair myself. Had a couple years experience as an all round labourer.

Thanks for your input 👍

I didn't have the same issue as yourself as I had the cash saved, but I did use Revolut for all transactions and I made sure it was all traceable, as it's a lot of money to go missing, again I was confident with the agent, but I wanted to ensure there was a trace in case anything went wrong, I would seriously avoid cash as they could take it and say you haven't paid anything, there will also be no evidence of you handing over the money.

Like Jane said, save up for the cash, there are plenty of properties out there majority need a serious renovation, and the one's that don't ask a lot of money. I would not want to be trying to renovate a property whilst having to pay interest on everything I'm borrowing, it will take a lot longer to achieve, but then I believe this is a good thing as you will prioritise what you need over what is nice and stops you wasting money on vanity projects as every penny is accounted for!

Good luck with your search and buying process.

Also, my property needs windows and doors as well as plastering internally, the windows are old wooden frames with single pane glazing that is so thin it makes a green house look double-glazed, the plaster is blown at some points and needs redoing it just down to the houses being left for so long, they need to be lived in to be maintained.

Building supplies are ok, a bit cheaper than in the UK, not by much, you need to check the quality of some things as you can end up getting some poor quality stuff, but if you know what you are looking at, you will be fine.

Unless the property is dirt-cheap (under 10k leva) you CAN'T pay cash for it; anything above that amount has to be paid for by bank transfer. A BGN10k house is more likely to be a knocker-downer than a fixer-upper these days, unless it's in some dodgy "dying village" or an "ethnic" mahala - either of which should have you running for the hills!

Sean, we bought a fixer-upper in Bg too, so I wouldn't say it was crazy at all! I understand you not wanting to wait, as well, I am like a prisoner in jail marking the days off on their cell wall waiting until I qualify for the long-stay visa. No intention here to try to suggest you shouldn't do it!

But I do think going into credit card debt for a fixer-upper is risking digging a deeper hole. While you're paying off the credit card, that interest is lost money you won't be able to save. You will really need every penny. Unless you make a very lucky buy, a 5,000 GBP house is likely to not just need some work doing, but be derelict.

Also, timing - by late autumn it will be getting cold. Really cold. Early spring is the same. Summers are hot hot hot, but winter can be longer than the UK and bitterly cold. Speaking from my own experience here - a cheapie fixer-upper house with huge leaky holes in the roof, dirt floors, and disintegrating wooden windows with cracked paper-thin glass holds about as much warmth as a nylon tent. If the house does have electricity, the wiring will be crumbling and unsafe, so using electric heating until the place is rewired isn't a good idea.

If you do buy somewhere and intend to stay at that time of year, focus on getting one room, ideally one you can fit a wood stove into (there will be a round hole about 130mm/ 4" wide in the wall for the chimney pipe, or a round metal plug you remove to insert the chimney pipe into) as dry and as draft free as possible. Plastic sheeting over the windows helps, and using old blankets for curtains at night. If there's not a wood stove somewhere in the house, buy a cheap one at the local builder's merchants, and then get in a good supply of dry firewood and lots of blankets!

Building materials tend to be a bit less expensive in Bulgaria - you can get an idea by looking on sites like Praktiker.bg or Masterhaus. Prices at the local builder's merchants will be lower, but unless you speak good Bulgarian it can be tricky to order anything locally.

Good luck!

@S25 - Sean

Hi, I purchased last year, did it all myself. Got myself a solicitor and translator and paid a fraction of the price I would have with an agent. What area are you looking at?

It's a daunting thought but it can be done.

Let me know if I can advise.

Al

@S25 - Sean

Bulgaria's a great country, I'm very happy living here, and highly recommend it.

But if you're on such a tight budget, you might have to hold your horses a while longer. Dirt cheap properties (less than 10k euros, say) are getting pretty rare, especially if you want it to be livable/repairable. Even fairly dilapidated village houses CAN be renovated, but you'd probably need to factor in the cost of a caravan in the garden until you've got the house habitable. If you can do EVERYTHING yourself, then your options are obviously wider. If not, re-roofing could be 10k+, and septic tank and inside shower room could be 5k+.

Apart from buying the property... how will you earn a living here in order to buy food and building materials? And have you figured out how you'll get legal residence?

In terms of searching for some diamonds in the rough, here's my list of where I'd look first. Ebay's still the place for cheap bargains, so have a look at their Bulgarian listings. Mowlem EU and BulgariaDirect (both put their properties on RightMove) specialize in dry and solid village houses that Brits will love. They are mostly pay-monthly (very popular, and helps you stretch your budget, rather than doing credit card borrowings), but they will both discount for cash up-front. Bulgarian Properties (dot com) is a reputable, nationwide agent with lots of properties all over the country. You can do a national search under a specific budget and see if there are any houses that appeal. I also like Ideal Homes (idealhomes-bg dot com) and they have some interesting properties in the lovely region of Veliko Tarnovo, which is very popular with Brits. They have some characterful properties under 10k with bags of potential. Cheap Bulgarian House (cheap-bulgarian-house dot co dot uk) does what it says in the tin, and they have some options under 10k euros. If you can look at these sites and see 50 houses (or more) that you'd love, then there's still hope! :-)

@gwynj

What are your views on IMOT or Alo (dot bg) or other similar sites where agents or private sellers post houses for sale?.

@VillageLife

Imot and Alo (and OLX) are popular websites with Bulgarians, with plenty of listings. I don't think any of them are strong on the really cheap stuff. And the Bulgarian user focus makes it harder for a foreigner to complete a purchase. As many owners, and quite a few agents, either don't speak English or think foreign buyers will be a hassle (lots of blah, blah, blah and not much action). In the past, I tried to follow up on a couple of things on Alo and OLX, but unsuccessfully. You might have more success than me, if you're really determined (and find a helpful agent).

In general, it seems easier to deal with agents like Property (dot bg) or BulgarianProperties (dot com) who are more focused on expat buyers. Or a property portal like RightMove (dot com) which, like Alo and Imot has lots of agents, but they're agents actively marketing to expats. Additionally, these websites don't force you to choose an area, so if you're a cheapskate looking for bargains, it's easy to search the whole country for stuff under 10k (or whatever your budget is).

A few of the ones I mentioned are very good for cheaper properties and quite focused on Brits (and other English speakers welcomed).

Personally, I've purchased 3 properties from BulgarianProperties, and I'm very happy with my purchases, and the company was extremely easy to deal with. I'm happy to recommend them. But they're certainly not the only option. Like many countries, there are a ton of agents and it's impossible to list them all. I just name a few that I think are relevant for a bit of research, and should be a fairly painless way to buy a property. Several are very appropriate for our Brit-on-a-budget as they're specialized in fairly original village houses for this type of buyer.

If you're a wealthy American with a much larger budget, then you have a LOT more options, both in terms of agents/portals and property choices. If you do have the budget, then buying more upscale properties is, in my humble opinion, much less of a headache. Some folks are very focused (sometimes of necessity) on the very cheapest available. I prefer to think of Bulgaria's low cost as being reflected in the kind of property and location that you can aim for, at a fraction of the cost of an equivalent property in many other countries.

Two things to be aware of looking on some of the online property sites, especially sites aimed at non-Bulgarians:

1. Listings may be left up for houses that are sold (sometimes even years ago) to get buyers to contact them. There are also a lot of "scraper" sites, who don't have any connection to the actually seller at all but hope to get a fee for sending customers to the real agent, and listings can be slow to update;

2. Very old listings for houses that are still on the market but now will be in far worse condition than the listings show. Empty village houses do deteriorate fast. On Cheap Bulgarian House there are a lot of older listings, but listings there will have a "date last updated" so you can see how how they are. Other sites don't do this. There's one site that's been mentioned on the forum a few times (but not in this thread) that still has some listings using the same photos I saw when I first started researching Bulgaria in 2013!

I don't think any of the sites Gwyn or I mentioned do this, they're generally reliable. But the other tactic that even some of the better sites sometimes use is a string of lovely photos showing how the house used to look, and one right at the end showing the current dilapidated condition. Or photos carefully framed to only show the nice bits, or with the focus on something pretty in the hope you don't notice the hole in the ceiling. Examine all photos very carefully!

I'm sure there are still some decent value buys out there even for someone on a lower budget, especially for a handy person willing and able to take on a big renovation job and able to buy building materials and pay for someone else to do the jobs they can't do. Or a natural builder willing to rough it while renovating a wreck using as close as possible to the original materials - the earth from the site and locally harvested timber. But sometimes when properties on online sites look too good to be true, it's because the listings aren't telling the whole truth. Very cheap properties will need far more work than most people imagine.