Weather is beautiful ... have bought converted watermill...

The Observer, August 21st 2005, *with excerpts

Some people snap up more than just postcards on holiday, write Ben Flanagan and Nick West

Thousands of people each year return from their overseas holidays with the dream of buying a second home in the sun. Most of these dreams will remain just that - but for some the temptation to buy is harder to resist.

'Bulgaria is very unspoilt, the people are nice and the beaches are beautiful,' enthuses 25-year-old Scott Love. Scott is not talking about his home town of Leicester but about Bulgaria - where he and accountant girlfriend Claire Spencer have bought a property after spending two weeks' holiday there.

The couple's 36,000 Euro studio apartment is in Ravda beach resort. 'We wanted to go somewhere completely different - Croatia seemed a bit expensive, but Bulgaria is very reasonable,' says Scott, an assistant manager at a plumber's merchant.

'We went to Bulgaria with an inkling of [buying] - but it got a lot more interesting while we were there. I did a bit of homework on the internet before we went.'

New, cheaper flights to Bulgaria - which previously only had a couple of services a week from the UK - are making the country a booming tourist destination and realistic choice for those buying homes overseas.

And Scott plays down the negative perceptions of this once-impoverished Soviet satellite: '[The poverty] is not as bad as you'd think. People told me how the hotels were of a low standard - but I've stayed in a lot worse places than Bulgaria. It was really quite modern.'

Buy a holiday home in one of the beach resorts

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