Silly to say 'that at any price Bulgaria is overpriced'.
I have bought there and paid 85k all in.
If a pasting is to come like some think I lose - fair enough.
What will I lose - at worst 40k. Can live with that ?
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The original poster asked for a safe bet, in so far as such a thing is possible. He didn't ask to lose half his investment immediately.
You have answered the question yourself regarding Bulgaria I think, you expect to take a pasting it would seem, and you are probably right.
That however is not investing, it is gambling, and reckless gambling at that without even studying the form. It simply does not make any kind of sense to spend money in a market without taking the demographics into account. At the risk of repeating myself, there is currently almost NO RENTAL MARKET in this area, apart from the mini boom in catering to people buying property. The entire holiday market, or 90% of it, is hotel based. When all the properties that are currently under construction have been completed, the prospects will be much worse than they are now. In addition, the season is VERY SHORT, no more than 10 weeks of which about three are counted as high season.
The facts around this market have been very successfully clouded by the marketing companies who devised the "guaranteed rental" scam. The reality is that there is absolutely no future for any kind of rental market along this coast. When that sinks in, the market will collapse. An awful lot of buyers who have gone into Bulgaria with eyes closed are really expecting that the rents wil cover their borrowings, and will not believe anything to the contrary until the "rental guarantees" run out. That is the time when the fan will get clogged up with the proverbial.
Let me further blow away some of the clouds. Buyers at 90 to 100K are being offered a 4% to 5% "guaranteed" return in the form of "rent". On an 80k property, that amounts to as much as 5,000 euro per annum. Spread this over 10 weeks and you have 500 euro per week, assuming 100% occupancy. Currently, apartments of this value can be rented for between 100 and 150 euro per week. Where then are the developers getting people to pay up to five times the market rate?
The other thing is this; almost nobody expects to actually make any money here -- even those who are in denial about the mistake that they have made in putting money into this market. They all expect to make their profit on having someone pay the mortgage, which is simply not going to happen for one day more than the "rental guarantee" period.
If anyone really wants to own an apartment on Sunny Beach or the environs thereof, you just have to wait until this fact gets through to the masses who have rushed like lemmings to this market. You will then have to decide if you want to retain a place in what will effectively be a ghost town for most of the time, but at least you will be able to buy it at market value and not a multiple thereof.
The original poster wanted to invest more sensibly, and is to be commended for that. What a shame that more people don't look before they leap. Ireland could have a great future with a huge possibility of wealth creation and long-term foreign property returns given our current buying power; as it is, most of this opportunity is being and continues to be squandered by this kind of foolhardy "investing".