More British people live in Bulgaria today than nationals from any other country in the European Union, which total 8,444.

Statistics from the Bulgarian National Statistical Institute (NSI) show that as of February 2011, there are 36,723 foreigners living in Bulgaria, accounting for 0.5 per cent of the country’s population. Twenty-three per cent of these are from the EU, including 2,605 UK citizens and 1,253 Greeks. The largest groups of foreigners in Bulgaria are Russians, numbering 11,991, and Ukrainians (3,064).

“The data shows that the biggest groups of foreigners living permanently in Bulgaria include citizens of the countries from which there are most property buyers in the country – mostly from Russia and the UK,” said Polina Stoykova of agent Bulgarian Properties. “This shows that apart from investment purposes part of the foreigners’ interest in real estate in Bulgaria was for the purpose of permanent living.”

The NSI stats also showed that in the last decade the number of homes in Bulgaria has increased by 5.4 per cent and that the biggest rise has been in the regions of Bourgas and Varna. To search for properties in these or any other areas of Bulgaria, visit Rightmove Overseas’s Bulgaria listings.

To understand the full step-by-step process to buying a property in Bulgaria, collect The Overseas Guides Company’s ‘Bulgaria Property Buying Guide