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Through his own business, John was well aware that property prices in Bulgaria have risen 35 per cent in the last couple of years and that the country is set to join the EU in 2007, giving it a huge economic boost. Tourism has also taken off (British visitors have increased by over 40 per cent since 2003) because the cost of living is still ridiculously low by western standards – a three-course meal plus wine for two costs about £7.

Through his wife, John had also met another Bulgarian, Kali Krastev, who now lives in the UK but returns regularly to Bulgaria and has extensive local contacts and knowledge. Keen to invest in Bulgaria before prices rose beyond their budget, John and Kali targeted the 10th century trading town of Bansko, 160km south of Sofia, the capital, in the Pirin mountains of southern Bulgaria, as the best place for their building plans. Kali had also worked for several seasons in the town as a ski instructor and as a result knew many of the local characters and town officials.

They then joined forces with John’s sister Alexandra and his friend Rob, who were both keen to invest in the project and, together, the four decided to try their hand at building and selling ski chalet apartments in Bansko.

They agreed that, once they had bought the land and gained the necessary permissions, they wanted to cover their building costs and make a small profit by selling the apartments off-plan to investors, while retaining some apartments for themselves as an investment and as holiday homes for their own use.

Buying the Land

With this in mind, John and Kali were dispatched by the team to Bulgaria to procure sufficient land to develop in Bansko. This was no easy task in a town where other Greek, Russian and British property developers were eagerly sniffing around and where land prices were apt to double overnight if the locals thought that a foreigner was interested in buying it.

The attractions of Bansko for speculative developers are obvious even now. In the summer the resort is popular with Bulgarians for its biking, hiking and horse riding. Two golf courses are also being built nearby and the surrounding villages are all famous for their mineral spas. The town also boasts 180 mehanas, or taverns, full of people singing and dancing to the local Bulgarian folk bands.

In the winter Bansko becomes a magnet for families in search of good-value skiing holidays. Unlike Mount Vitosha and Borovets, two other ski resorts closer to Sofia which get very crowded at weekends, Bansko’s relative distance from Sofia ensures it remains less crowded and fun for all ages. It is also the current focus of government spending designed to position it as a top quality resort and now has 56km of ski runs, a brand new gondola system and snow machines on 90 per cent of the pistes, meaning visitors can ski right down to the town itself.

For John and Kali, finding the right plot in the right location took many visits to the town. The land needed to have good views of the mountains but also be near the centre of town if the ski apartments were going to appeal to British buyers. But acquiring the piece of land the two friends finally settled on turned out to be fraught with complications.

“The owner of the plot we wanted had just died,” says John “and he’d left it to 10 relatives who had all been unable to agree on what to do with it. They’d split it into several smaller plots to sell individually. The trick was to try and acquire several of the plots at the same time, without alerting the other owners, who would then put the price up. Luckily, all the relatives had fallen out with each other and weren’t on speaking terms! There was no way they were going to tell their relatives how much they had sold for – on the contrary, they begged us not to tell anyone the real price in case the other relatives got jealous or the tax office found out.”

During this process, John spent much of his time hiding outside in the car while Kali carried on negotiations in Bulgarian, so the sellers didn’t realise foreigners were involved and thus double the price. Eventually, after a nail-biting couple of weeks, including a memorable car trip from Sofia to Bansko with a couple of rucksacks of cash on the back seat, Kali and John managed to acquire four plots of prime land in the middle of the town, 15 minutes’ walk from the main gondola and eight minutes’ walk from the town centre.
Now the fun really started. Kali had already set up a Bulgarian company to own the plots, since non Bulgarians are not allowed to own land in the country. The four plots then had to be consolidated back into one plot to satisfy the Bulgarian tax office, the land re-zoned and then outline planning permission had to be given. The process for gaining detailed planning permission, complete with architects’ drawings, came next.

Detailed planning approval normally takes six to eight months, but, given his local contacts, Kali managed to reduce this and permission to start construction was granted in December 2005.

Building the Apartments

So, after all the challenges, what kind of project do this brave group of friends plan to build? Well, Chalet Ku-Ku-Riak, named after the first local mountain flower to appear in winter, is designed to be a luxury Swiss-style ski chalet complex comprising 55 apartments in the centre of Bansko.

The south-facing chalet apartments will have views of the mountains and ski slopes and have been designed for year-round use, with studios of 36m2 costing from £22,000 (€31,500), one-bedroom apartments from £28,000 (€40,000), and large 150m2 two-bedroom apartments from £62,000 (€88,000). The complex will also contain a café, a communal restaurant, a snooker room, wireless internet, cable TV, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a sauna and jacuzzi, a gym and a small shop.

Kali and John are confident that building work will start in April 2006, and is scheduled to finish in May 2007. The two recently released the first properties for sale off-plan at a property investor show last November and, to date, 13 apartments have already been reserved. Meanwhile, Kali and John are caught up in the relentless detail of the pre-build phase. Says Kali “At the moment I am talking to architects and structural engineers, the construction companies and heating and ventilation specialists. Then there’s the surveyors, the building control bodies, the lawyers, the local property management companies, the hydro-geological surveyor – and then there’s all the problems connected to the water, electricity, sewage and gas… “But it’s going to be wonderful – the designs for the apartments are fantastic and I can’t wait to start construction. It has been a real challenge so far, even for me, and I’m Bulgarian!

“When we were first trying to get the four plots re-joined into one plot again, the town officials kept telling me publicly how lengthy and difficult the process would be – but privately they also dropped broad hints that it was not impossible. ‘Nothing is impossible in Bulgaria’, they kept saying to me. And I really believe that. Both John and I are determined that Chalet Ku-Ku-Riak will be a success, and we can’t wait to bring our own families out here for holidays”.

Five Top Tips

• You need the inside track in order to cut down the risks of being an ignorant abroad, whether it’s a local friend, a close contact or a business partner who speaks the language

• If you have a clear buy-to-let strategy you can do most of your research via the internet - from researching dollar exchange rates to tracking weather patterns

• Be unemotional about the investment – who is your market? What do they want? Is there really any money to be made? Is the area past its peak?

• Research the new infrastructure projects or government money going in to the area. Are they joining the EU soon? What is the legal structure there? Is there a new airport or golf course being built?

• Check the local house prices over the past five years. Are they at the top or bottom of a curve? Is now a good time to buy or not?