Brits and Bulgarian Real Estate

Brits and Bulgarian Real Estate

Hello again,

We ran across an article in the online publication “Shelter Offshore” that tried to explain exactly what it was that brought the Brits and the Irish to Bulgaria in such huge numbers in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. There’s a paragraph in the middle of the article that I think does a wonderful job of summing it all up:

The fact of the matter is, Bulgaria was possibly the biggest victim of over-hyped overselling of property at a time when we Brits and we Irish couldn’t get enough of the stuff abroad! We believed that we were rich because we were convinced that the value of our own homes were rising and that the cheap credit and loans that we could get our hands on easily would never be hard to pay back. At the same time we were told about an almost mythical land poised on the brink of EU entry where money was being thrown at the country to make it rise in value across the board. (http://www.shelteroffshore.com/index.php/property/more/what-happening-bulgaria-dead-property-market-10726)

I think that’s a pretty good summary. The only part that maybe is left out is the arrogance of the Brits and Irish who did buy in Bulgaria when the Pound Sterling was strong and the Euro was weak, and also the attitude that said – in effect – “we’re going to take over Bulgaria and turn it into GB2.”

Well, we all know what happened, and unfortunately for Bulgaria, the downfall of the Brits and Irish also killed the Bulgarian real estate market even more thoroughly than the US real estate market meltdown and the subsequent financial disaster(s).

There were innocents (yes, there really were innocents involved in this whole mess) who suffered the most and deserved it the least: the Bulgarians who got talked out of their traditional cash investment policies into mortgages that they subsequently could not pay. In a sort of an attempt to emulate what the Brits were doing, some Bulgarians slaughtered their own financial piggy bank. Luckily, I believe that it was relatively few. Some of these were happily driving super-expensive 4×4’s (that they could not afford) and living the life of Riley (that they also could not afford) until Armageddon arrived. Then, everything went down the drain: the house, the vacation apartment on the coast, the car, and all of that fancy hyped-up lifestyle.

Will the Brits return? I think – ultimately – yes. To a certain extent it’s a question of greed, and when the Bulgarian market starts showing signs of recovery, the greedy ones will be back. And some might even return because they like the place. There may even be some who buy up a few apartments from fellow Brits at what they think is the bottom of the market, and return to the Bulgarian market in that way.

We’ll see!

Jimmy Craig
for
Bulgaria Realtor Blog and
and Good 2004 OOD

Brits and Bulgarian Real Estate

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Tags: Armageddon, Arrogance, Attitude, Brink, Brits, Bulgaria, Bulgarian Real Estate, Bulgarians, Cash Investment, Cheap Loans, Credit Loans, Downfall, Fact Of The Matter, Financial Disaster, GB2, Innocents, Investment Policies, Irish, Market Meltdown, Mortgages, Mythical Land, Over-Hyped Overselling, Paragraph, Piggy Bank, Pound Sterling, Real Estate Market

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 18:39 and is filed under Political Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.