Welcome back to the weekly newsletter. This week is another semi-filler episode since I'm still travelling throughout Bulgaria, soaking in the sights, the culture, and the fractures in the real estate market, trying to understand what the catches are and where the growth might be. A short read, but hopefully still interesting if you've been following along so far.
I wanted to document my mid-trip thoughts on the investability of Bulgaria as a country, and of the real estate market in particular, since there's still a lot I have to see but there is a seed of a direction forming and it's unfortunately not a positive one. As I mentioned in the last episode, Bulgaria is the lowest income country in the EU, and it shows. The interesting part for me is where and how that statistic manifests. Is public transport lacking, is physical security an issue, are beaurocratic processes slow and inefficient?
The answer I've found so far lies in perhaps the most challenging and impactful area of society; education. Bulgaria consistently ranks as one of the lowest countries in the EU by education, whether it's literacy, academic performance, tertiary education, and more. This in itself isn't really an issue, after all, you might only interact with a small subset of society (lawyers, doctors, etc), and so the population level statistics become irrelevant. However, that is unfortunately not the whole picture.
Low ranking education - I feel - manifests literally everywhere across every aspect of daily life. Whether it's people driving on the roads, ordering things, searching for reliable information, and more, there seems to always be a very subtle almost imperceptable friction (beyond the language barrier, if any) caused by poor education. That said, I have met some incredibly well educated and intelligent people here, and so this is not about them at all, but more about the society and culture at large.
To give some concrete examples, it's common in the UK for struggling towns and cities to have an abundance of gambling shops. It's the exact same here. It's also common for residents in struggling areas to seek any escape from reality through recreational drugs and other lifestyle choices. It's the same here, almost half of all men and over one in every four women smoke . It's a similar story when it comes to gambling and although online advertising is banned, billboards and shopfronts advertising gambling are found in almost every town.
This all paints a bit of a sad story, not from any sort of investment perspective, but from a very human one. I see a country so far that is simply really struggling, and I wish last weeks optimism was still as strong having seen a further 200km of the countryside, buildings, and coast, but it's not. The question then is; is this how the Bulgaria story ends? Is there a saving grace and exciting new area or possibility that could re-ignite the quest for exciting investment? I hope so, and over the next few days I'm aiming to find out, so I hope you're here for that journey.
That's it for this week, hope all is well wherever you are and see you next time.
Thanks and all the best,
Oliver
Previous Episode: The Bulgaria Thesis