Not so long ago, I wrote a post for my blog called Educaring . Please do not misunderstand me. I really do believe that teachers, youth workers, parents (and indeed anyone involved with young people) all have a duty to protect children and teenagers, to keep them safe. As I argued in my previous posting, I also believe that the task of protecting children is becoming more and more difficult - almost impossible, in fact. Yes, the Internet has a lot to do with it, I am sure, but there is another problem that is hardly ever discussed. In a nutshell, anyone who genuinely cares about children finds it very hard to imagine how evil and how subtle child molesters and pedophiles really are. I think that is probably why many teachers and parents just do not know when a pedophile is "grooming" a child and why they often do not believe it, even when confronted with the unpleasant truth. Michael Green at Windlesham House School I knew Michael Green when I was teaching at Windlesh...
Hello. My wife (who is Bulgarian) and I enjoy your blog. We also like VT and were thinking of buying an apartment in the town centre as an investment, but I'm a bit worried that the market might already have peaked there and properties could be overpriced. Grateful for any insight you can offer. Thanks, Andrew.
ReplyDeleteYes, VT is lovely (and quite a lot cheaper than Sofia). There are two or three universities in VT, so maybe you could consider letting to students. There are a lot of properties for sale and there is a not much demand, so my guess is that the prices might go down a bit over the next year or so. Therefore I would not be in a hurry to buy anything at the moment. On the whole, there is quite a big difference between the prices that you will see in estate agents' advertisements and the price that you finally pay after some haggling.
DeleteGenerally speaking, the population of Bulgaria is declining and VT is one of the few cities where the population has remained stable or even gone up a bit. On the other hand, maybe you would be wiser to think of buying something in Sofia, if you really want an investment rather than a home.
I have written three or four posts about buying property in BG. We are buying our house in Daveri because it is a lovely place to live, not because we are interested in making money out of it.
Thank you for your in-depth reply, Simon. I didn't mean to give the impression that we're speculators - we also have a lovely house in a village here and are committed to living here in the long term. The property, if we buy one, would be a base for our young daughter in the future further along the line. All the best, Andrew.
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