Welcome to my site.
Please let me introduce myself, my name is Mark Wright and for more than eight years now I have been in the real estate business, mainly within the UK, where I became an office manager with a leading estate agency group. After moving to Bookavets near Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria in March 2007 I did not work for several months, then for 10 months I worked for one of the largest real estate agencies in Veliko Tarnovo, helping train the English speaking Bulgarian agents, who deal with the International clients.
I am now working independantly locating properties for buyers, who are looking to relocate around Veliko Tarnovo, Resen, Hotnitsa areas. Working on their behalf, I can access far more properties and select only ones suitable to my clients thus cutting down time spent looking at non suitable abodes.
I live here with my wife Sally, and son Shane, (our daughter Teri, lives in Swindon Wiltshire.) in a large village called Resen, just north of Veliko Tarnovo. We enjoy a stress free lifestyle that we could only imagine whilst living in the UK., long hot sunny summers and cold snowy winters.
There are quite a few Brit’s within a few kilometers of us, but mostly we talk to our Bulgarian neighbours, slowly, as we do not speak fluent Bulgarian yet! The local people are very friendly and will often pass you small gifts like fruit and Rakia (local home made whiskey) We for our part return their friendship with home made cakes etc.
Our British friends are great, we meet up quite often to help each other with new products found, or general information we have gathered. Sometimes just for a coffee or beer!
I have found that many British come here looking to buy property, but do not know where to start. I have a few key questions that I like to ask, this gives me a real insight to what they are looking to achieve. As I have been through the process and now know the pitfalls, hopefully I can save others the heartache and stress of searching for the right property.
I can help with all the details required in buying property here, from setting up bank accounts to opening your company, this is required when you buy a house with land. I can source any kind, from land/apartment/house/office even hotels.
Let me know how I can help you.
If you have any questions about my service I can provide you with names and email address's of previous clients who would be happy to tell you more about me and the level of service provided.
Please read all the "post's" on my blog, at the bottom of each page you can click a button for "older post's" this just means "go to the next page". You should find a lot of useful information contained here. If you feel the need for anything else please let me know and I will be happy to oblige.
One thing that should be considered when buying in Bulgaria is how are you going to heat your new home?
Heating is not optional, the winters here can get as cold as minus 20 degrees, you need to be prepared. The cold weather usually starts around the end of October, chilly, rather than cold, but the heating maybe needed, until March.
The options are:-
1/ A wood burner (Kamina) heating hot water pumped around the house to radiators, this system can also be connected to a water boiler to heat your domestic water when your Kamina is burning.
2/ Air conditioner units in different rooms, these can be used in the winter to provide heat as well as in the summer for cool air. The only issue with this idea is that if there was a power cut in the cold winter, you could be very cold!
3/ A small wood burner in your lounge that just heats that room, then mobile gas heaters that can be moved around the house to where you need heat. Almost everyone here has these heaters, they can be used just for a small time in the chilly evening or morning to take the chill off of a room, it saves lighting the Kamina.
4/ An electric heating system providing heat to radiators. This is the most expensive system to have as electricity is not cheap. Oue house already had this system installed when we bought it, the bills in the early winter months were high, so we have had a Kamina installed as well.
So if you choose a wood burner how much will it cost to run? Wood is 55 - 60 Lev (£20 - £24)per cubic metre, a good guide is that you'll need between 10 and 15 cubic metres per year, depending on the weather, coal is a good idea to have in as well, this costs about 6 Lev (£2.40) for a 20 Kilo bag, a guide would be about 30 - 35 bags per year.
Instalation cost's.
1/ Kamina and radiators cost from around 7000 Lev (£2,800) depending on size of Kamina required and how many radiators needed.
2/ Air conditioners start at about 600 Lev (£440) each, then the instalation cost is about 50 Lev (320) each.
3/ I am sorry, but I do not know how much the electric system costs, I would not recommend this system due to the running costs.
I hope you find this artical useful when deciding on heating.
