Scarier? No, but be warier in Bulgaria! Lots of cheats, liars, cowboys, thieves - you think I'm kidding -
click here for A NIGHTMARE in BULGARIA

There's lots of iron pyrites in this gold-rush. Here's what they don't tell you! Maybe you don't mind, well fine, as long as you know.
"beautiful mountain chalet"
= small run-down cottage in isolated, inbred hamlet. Very difficult and expensive to improve - especially sourcing & transporting materials and skilled workers. Also extreme weather makes it difficult to maintain. Fewer & fewer nearby full time residents so little community or security. Small sloping plots with poor soil. Drainage & sewer problems. Few buses and difficult or no access in snow. No readily available amenities, facilities or emergency services. Poor mobile, internet and TV coverage. Winter lasts two months longer than in the valleys.
"seaside or ski apartment" = cramped flat or bedsitter badly built as cheaply as possible from breeze blocks and cement. Priced at five times what it cost to build. [Reason for their massive advertising - the agent makes minimum $10,000 commission out of you on each]PLUS the rip-off service charges [maybe 10 lev to change a light bulb - a gypsy's wages for a day] PLUS you'll be lucky to even get the taps included.
"guaranteed income"= farcical promise [subsidised out of their colossal profits of course] The season only lasts 5 months on the coast, a ghost town six months of the year. Winter weather from the Russian Steppes - windchill up to -40 degrees centigrade. Colossal overbuilding & a shrinking market.
"great investment"= can only decline in value if unrestricted building continues. They can build new ones and sell them at a very good profit for less than half of what they charged you, if they have to. Inadequate infrastructure = later electricity shortages and maybe sewage in the streets
"capital appreciation" = They hike up the price of new apartments each year, but that doesn't mean YOURS will appreciate. There is hardly any market in second hand apartments. They definitely won't want to try to sell yours again!
"ski/golf year round rentals"= 2 hour queues at the lifts and links, 17 miles of runs at Bansko & NO snow last year [compared to 50 + miles at most western ski resorts. Both 20 years behind. Growing resistance to the way they're destroying the environment.
"rental potential"= completely inadequate infrastructure - sewage, electricity, water, roads overloaded already. Massive future problems. Down-market, declining, dirty, cheap, cramped, shabby anthills for yobs and east European families within five years. The agents will have moved on to the new glamorous developments. Big profits for everyone but you. Lots of nibbles before you'll get a bite !
"our skilled local builders"= the local chancer, English or Bulgar, who'll get gypsies for 10 lev a day to do all the hard work, and a semi-skilled tradesman on a rock bottom quote for the tricky stuff. Bulgarian standards, poor finish, shoddy work. No supervision. Everything as cheap and basic as possible. Then charge you up to ten times what they pay out, after cutting every corner they can. Plus a kick back for the agent who won't even go near the job. Some of these lazy cowboys can live for a year on one improvement. Most of them have no real experience and many jobs need doing again.
"the agent, only here to help you " we sell all types of property everywhere= using a runner or acting as middlemen on commission-only and never seeing the houses. You'll never see THEM once you've bought it. All selling the same houses at different prices.
"Trust us and you can't go wrong." = no profession or qualification, just jumping on the big new bandwagon called fleecing the Brits.The seller's price is in lev, the agent doubles the price by changing it to euros, PLUS charging you commission. Like the so-called "Builders" they can live for a year on one good sale. THEY can't go wrong.
"Our houses are the best" = one house in four doesn't complete, then you've got to start again, AND try to get the deposit back. The title or the agent may be dodgy or the peasants decide they want much more money, or another agent has already sold it. Plus 1 in 10 of the people who send a deposit forfeit it when they see the house because it's nothing like the description, and go back home without buying.
Here's a few more euphemisms:
Some delay = disappear when they've got enough 50% commissions.
Helping you = helping themselves
Full furniture packages = five times mark up on cheap, nasty flatpack.
Save 400 quid by not buying a limited company = Penny-wise, pound foolish Brits. You won't own any of the land the apartment stands on.
The service charges = a rip-off now, but can be multiplied 20 times when the existing contract runs out & then they'll repossess and rent to Romanians..
Highly experienced = established for over six months !
We're your new best friends = we have attractive, clever young people manipulating you with drink and sexual chemistry
How clever and lucky you are to come to us = how clever and lucky they are to make so much money out of you.