Blind faith lands one couple a new life
Nikki and Darren Weeks bought a house in Bulgaria without seeing it, in an area they'd never visited and sent the money out to an agent they'd never met. If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it's turned out to be anything but; having bought the property as a holiday home, they've now moved out there lock, stock and barrel.
The Weeks' first became interested in buying a property abroad after taking holidays in Spain and then France a few years ago. In 2004, Nikki saw a TV programme about properties being sold in Bulgaria for as little as £5,000, and quickly checked it out on the internet where she found it was true.
Fired with enthusiasm, the couple flew out to Sunny Beach on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast that September with a £10,000 budget and a mission to find themselves a holiday home. They had a Bulgarian contact they had been introduced to by somebody on the MyBulgaria online forum; on their first day they set up a company as a vehicle to buy a property.
During the following days, Darren and Nikki were taken round a succession of houses in nearby villages. "Most of them were real wrecks," says Nikki. "They were like shacks, often with no roof." At first she also found Bulgaria something of a culture shock. "There was a lot of poverty and there seemed to be rubbish everywhere. But then we met some Bulgarians, and I'd never met such friendly people in my life."
The couple's eye had fallen on one particular property, in a village called Goritza near Bourgas, and they arranged to meet the owners, two sisters. But one of the sisters, who lived in Sofia, had clearly heard about rich British buyers, and immediately put up the price by €2,000. Darren and Nikki walked away, and returned to the UK disappointed.
Back at home in Devon, the dream of owning a property in Bulgaria had taken root, and Nikki soon found herself trawling the internet for other properties. Again they found one they liked, and again they were let down, this time by their contact who sold the property to another British buyer.
By this time, Darren had turned against the whole idea, but then Nikki found another property, with a new agent close to the town of Yambol, one and a half hours inland from Bourgas. "The house wasn't particularly special from the front, but from the back it looked fantastic," says Nikki. "I got him to send me over 100 pictures; he even got somebody to take pictures with the time on them, so I could see that it was south facing, and when it would get the sun."
They contacted a couple of other owners who had bought through this agent and decided they could trust him. And although they hadn't been to the area, they were reassured by the fact that the agent had bought a property himself in the same village, General Inzovo. The asking price was under £5,000, and fearing that they would lose out if they didn't act, Nikki and Darren took a big gamble and sent the money out for the agent to buy the property on their behalf.
In fact, when they flew out to Bulgaria a month later, the transaction still hadn't gone through, so there was a chance to pull out - but there were no nasty surprises. "It was as if we already knew the house, because we'd seen so many pictures."
The house hadn't been lived in for 15 years and needed a huge amount of work. "The floors all needed concreting, we would have to re-do all the ceilings and walls, as there was plaster hanging off. The roof would have to be taken off and put back on, and it needed new windows, electrics and plumbing," says Nikki. They chose a builder who'd worked in the US and had a better idea of what they wanted than many of the locals would have done; and another British couple in the village, Helen and Mike, agreed to manage the project in their absence.
Meanwhile, back in the UK, Nikki and Darren made a radical decision - instead of having the house as holiday home, they would sell up in the UK and move their full-time. "Mike said: come and work with us, and we felt it was an opportunity we couldn't afford to miss. Our kids were only just grown up, and it was a bit of a shock for them, but they said 'if you really want to do it, do it.'"
The couple sold their house and moved to Bulgaria in December last year. Since then, they've decided to strike out with their own business, offering property hunting assistance to others looking to buy in Bulgaria.
They have also converted an apartment in the house, which is available for short- and long-term stays - ideal for anyone to use as a base while they are searching for their own property. In all, the house has cost £35,000 including all the renovation, but Nikki thinks it has been well worth it.
And they've also made every effort to become integrated with the local Bulgarian community. Darren plays for the village football team - the first foreigner to do so - and Nikki has become involved in supporting a local orphanage. "The people here couldn't have accepted us more if they had tried," says Nikki. "They bring us bunches of flowers and cakes, and I find myself baking because I don't want to give back their baking trays empty. They're not materialistic at all, even though they don't have very much."
At Christmas, Nikki and Darren and three other British families took chocolate Santas to all the children in the local school and the teacher was overwhelmed. She still finds aspects of life in Bulgaria frustrating, such as the bureaucracy, a degree of cruelty to animals and untidiness and admits that both she and Darren have had doubts about their new life, at times. She concludes: "We had happy lives in England, but there was no adventure, and we were always asking: is there more to life than this? We won't have a lot of money, but we just want to live out here."
May 2007
Alexander Garrett is a freelance property writer who contributes regularly to The Observer and British Airways' Business Life.
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