Our plans are constantly evolving and what suited us a while back, now maybe does not fit with our current ideas and ever changing family!
With that in mind we are toying with the idea of selling both our apartments at Sunset Kosharitsa and buying one larger place with more room for us and the dogs.
We still absolutely love the complex and no final decisions have been made, although of course if someone was to offer us the price we want, we would be silly to turn it down.
But with this in mind and having sorted a dog sitter for a few days, we headed off to the coast to explore different villages and meet up with a number of agents for various property viewings we had arranged, just to see what was on offer.
I had spent a couple of weeks previous to our trip scouring the internet for possible properties to view and had come across a development called Salt Lake Country Club, situated in the village of Cherno More, just a short distance from Burgas.
I made contact with a couple of owners there through online adverts and it sounded ideal. It was a complex of around 50 houses, all with their own individual gardens, there was a communal pool, a little restaurant and bar, security, fairly low annual maintenance (although no owners or agents could agree on the actual amount) and a short distance from the beach.
Indeed one owner told us the complex was “second to none” and had had a lot of money spent on it recently with the management being run by a private group based in Scotland, who employed a local person to do everything on site.
So we arranged to view several houses on the complex, one direct from the developer, a couple were for sale privately and we eventually managed to organise viewings with “World Wide Property Group”, once we had changed days to suit the agent.
We had a rough idea of where the complex was but as all the roads in the village were being dug up and a number of streets were closed, we gave up trying to find it in the end and met the first agent in the centre of the village, just as a massive thunderstorm hit.
Once the deluge had stopped we bounced along the ruts and pot holes, following him to the complex. As we later found out the road around the complex was never meant to be used by cars, as the original plans had the parking at the entrance and just paths to the houses, so trying to squeeze a vehicle in-between the houses was a challenge, let alone then turn round later.
It was clear as soon as we got there, that this was not the only change to the original concept. There was no restaurant or bar (at least not a working one) and the pool did not appear to have been used for a long time, if ever.
Small areas of the complex had been tidied but overall it had a very dilapidated feel to it and almost looked abandoned, apart from the odd property, where work was going on.
The first house we viewed was in fact more or less the cheapest one for sale on the complex at around 28,000 Euros. It was a small, 2 bed house we had asked to view as we had been given the impression it was the end house with a decent sized plot and private.
In fact, it was rather hemmed in and had houses to either side and in front. The house had serious damp and mould as well as several roof tiles missing and a rather dodgy chimney, although we were told that the developer would fix all this if a sale was agreed.
The agent explained that there had originally been a manager in place but he had basically run off with the annual maintenance money and after that everyone had stopped paying and so nothing was working and there was no communal facilities.
A few houses had been sold cheap to Russians who were “doing them up”, painting them gaudy colours and adding extensions.
While we waited for the representative for the World Wide Property Group to turn up we took a wander around. One little corner of the complex was well maintained.
This is where the Brits owned!!! And in true British style, they had set up their own little company and a few owners paid into this and paid a local expat guy to tend the gardens and keep this small area looking nice.
Eventually the lady from World Wide Property Group turned up. But she had no keys, not a clue about the complex and did not know where any of the properties were located, except one (as she had come with someone connected to the house).
At around 65,000 Euros it was very expensive for practically the same house as the first one we viewed there, but the listing had made it seem like it was very private, with a walled garden, BBQ area and nice covered terrace.
The reality was rather different. For starters to access the house, you had to walk across someone else’s driveway and garden. There was no way you could get there by car.
The boundary wall actually only went a few metres, the rest being a mixture of corrugated tin fencing and cheap wooden picketing, the house was located in a back corner and was being rented out to an old lady.
On to the next house, and while it had a far better aspect and nicer garden, the British owners (who happened to be there as otherwise we could not have seen inside as the agent had not made any attempt to get the keys) wanted a whopping 80,000 Euros!
We saw several other houses from the outside (as no keys) ranging from around 30,000 Euros to around 100,000 Euros, all with visible signs of damp, mostly in a state of disrepair.
As we had already decided we had absolutely no interest in buying on the complex, we were not bothered we could not see inside the rest of the properties, but of the many agents I have viewed and worked with over the years, World Wide Property Group have to take the biscuit as being the most disorganised, poorly informed and just downright useless agent I have ever come across.
It was an interesting afternoon, which left us wondering whether the British sellers we had contacted had any idea as to the state of the place today.
Had they ever visited the complex since they completed the initial purchase several years ago? Were they blindly paying into this private management fund without a clue as to what was really happening at the complex?
Did they honestly believe the complex was still “second to none” and that it was a little slice of heaven with pool, restaurant, bar, security……….and that their properties were worth what they bought them for or more, why had they never bothered to visit since paying over thousands for their holiday home……..
Or was it all a sales pitch in the hope someone buys blind and does not do their research………..I guess we’ll never know as emails to these people after our visit were never replied to!!!