Sunny Beach ranked 6th by Realtor.com for most affordable international beach towns for expats

Realtor.com has found some of the most affordable international beach towns where expats-wannabes will want to live—and where the regulations make it entirely possible.

"If looking out at the ocean every day and surfing and walking on the beach are your No. 1 [priorities], then you should be looking overseas—doing that in the United States today is seriously expensive," says Jennifer Stevens, executive editor of internationalliving.com, a website geared toward Americans searching for a home in a tropical paradise.

So what kinds of folks are relocating to exotic sand- and sun-filled locales? Let's check off the boxes: Retirees with fixed incomes searching for more bang for their buck. Recent college graduates looking for adventure and new opportunities. Tech employees who can work remotely. Or just everyday Americans who have had enough of the corporate lifestyle.
To create their list, the realtor.com data team first ruled out countries that have extremely restrictive policies on foreigners buying property. We also eliminated landlocked countries and limited the final ranking to no more than five countries per continent. Then the following data points* were pulled in:

• Citizenship ranking from U.S. News & World Report, which measures human rights, gender equality, and religious freedom
• Top expat destinations ranking of 65 countries from InterNations, a global network
• Average internet connection speed (so you can work remotely)
• Coastline size
• Low homicide rates
• Home affordability index from numbeo.com, a global consumer prices website
• Cost of living index from numbeo.com
• Average yearly temperature, to ensure plenty of beach days

Once they got our list of countries, they aggregated several international beach rankings from publications such as Condé Nast Traveler, CNN, and TripAdvisor to help them come up with their list of beaches. And they eliminated beach communities without nearby homes under $250,000.

In the final ranking Bulgaria's Sunny Beach comes on 6th place. Here is how Realtor.com describes it:

6. Sunny Beach (Bulgaria)

Bulgaria population: 7,084,571
Coastline length: 354 kilometers

Sunny Beach is a formerly notorious resort located on the coast of the Black Sea. It was built in the 1950s by the former Communist regime as a playground for the Soviet-era elite. Over the past decade or so it has come into its own as an expat hotspot for European and U.S. home buyers alike.

“It attracts mostly people seeking an alternative life: freelancers and IT professionals who can work from anywhere they choose,” says Polina Stoykova, managing director and head of research at Bulgarian Properties, a real estate agency. "We have great broadband internet everywhere, good quality of life, and they can integrate with locals."

But where Sunny Beach really has the advantage is dollars and cents. Bulgaria is inexpensive. Among the countries on which we collected data, only three European countries had a lower cost of living: Belarus, Serbia, and Romania. And the country is friendly to foreign investment.

Stoykova's firm has seen more Americans inquiring about Sunny Beach–area homes as of late. Most are looking around the 20,000 euro ($25,000) price point, for either a studio or one-bedroom. Bulgaria allows foreigners to buy apartments, condos, and homes—just not the land they sit on. But once you own the home, you're allowed to rent it out. So you can net a little side cash.

The other most-affordable beach towns for expats are spread around the world. They include Zlatni Rat (Croatia), Myrtos Beach (Greece), Tulum (Mexico), Port Dickson (Malaysia), Praia da Rocha (Portugal), An Bang Beach (Vietnam), La Concha Beach (Spain), Dominical Beach (Costa Rica) and Salinas (Ecuador).

Read the full article by Realtor.com

Attractive selection of properties in Sunny Beach and the neighboring resorts


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