Buying on eBay

This blog post has it's origin in a couple of things.

First of all I realised a little ago that I had missed something out of my "catch up" (which is wont to happen when you don't do your blogging in real time) that I had not talked about the time I almost bought a place off of eBay and secondly, I still find myself irresistibly drawn to looking at the listings on there and thinking "oooh I could afford that!!"

So to begin with my experience of eBay. This was the first place I went to when the thought to move to Bulgaria entered my head and it was eye opening. You can buy a place off eBay (and I know of a few people who have done this) for as little as £3000 and it will be pretty much as described (in the main).

There are a few large vendors on eBay and the main one is Investment Link. If you go onto eBay you will not be able to avoid seeing their houses. The first thing I did before really considering anything was a little bit of research. I went to the list of previous customers of Investment Link and contacted three or four asking them for a brief response describing how happy they were with the service / the purchase / the after care etc etc. You hear all sorts of horror stories about buying things from eBay and they aren't what was advertised so I would suggest this should be your first move also, whoever you are tempted to buy from.

The replies were informative. One person didn't reply at all, one came back with a glowing recommendation (though they did admit that they had bought several houses through them; which is a recommendation in itself) and the last person said the process had been fine but when they got to the house the "internal toilet" was actually in the garage.

I was tempted to point at that yes, actually, that is inside... but yeah....

This is (at the time of writing) offered on eBay for £840

So that left me happy that this organisation was to be trusted and it wasn't long before I saw my opportunity. One of the first properties I'd ever seen and liked was a walled compound in the north of the Rhodope and I had watched it all the way until it was sold. This was really the first house I saw which I said "actually, we could do this!" I am trying to remember exactly when it came back on the market (because of a waste-of-time buyer who never completed on the deal) but I think it was after the first visit so I was convinced I was going to emigrate. Even thought the location was not ideal at the prices that these places go for I was thinking it would work as a base, should I not find anywhere in my first choice location, and would be worth taking on to potentially rent out or sell after a minor renovation.

I placed my bids and set myself a firm limit which I would not go above. With about ten minutes to go that limit was passed and, despite much heart ache, I did not increase my bid. I lost the house by £35 on a finishing price of just about £2300.

This was a good thing as now, obviously, I have a perfect house which is in the perfect location and has a huge amount of land and is, itself, huge. At the time however the thought was sound and I am sure I did the correct thing; if I had won it for my limit I would not have been out of pocket and I am convinced it was of good stock. I have also, since, had a viewing trip with Investment Link and while the houses were not great the agents were good on the day.

They list this as an "easily modernisable shower" though...

After this one attempt I did not try to buy any more houses on eBay. As I was put onto the mailing list for Investment Link they did send me one which I thought looked good, which was in the perfect location, but it rapidly went past the price I wanted to pay for anything I had not been able to view. I went near that property on the "Viewing trip to end all viewing trips" and I must say I'm glad I didn't buy it; the access to the property was less than impressive.

I'll probably wrap this up now but I did want to observe that from my research it looks like buying property on eBay works really well if you are looking to move to the north of the country, but as you tend southwards it becomes less successful.

I'm trying to persuade a friend who did buy in the north to write a blog post of his experiences so hopefully that will follow this post shortly.