There was this story about a British couple and their two young daughters who left the UK (from Darlington, near London) and bought an abandoned three-bedroom house in Strazhitsa, Bulgaria, for just £7,000. After selling their UK home for £85,000, they moved with the aim of living more sustainably and mortgage-free, renovating the property themselves, gardening, and working primarily online. And as part of this romantic new life-style was the plan to install solar panels, composting systems, and use their own well for water.1 Now this is a story that’s more than a mere “investment idea”, more than about tourism, or a flashy TV makeover. It’s a story that kind of rewrites or should I say clarifies true ownership, and lifestyle. It’s about buying land and property outright, and avoiding the cost structures that trap many in major cities, and pivoting towards a life that’s debt-free.
Sri Lanka in fact, is quite fantastically positioned to do this superbly.
So here’s the thought experiment; What if investors (especially the Sri Lankan diaspora) thought of property on the island, as infrastructure for living, that merely a financial product?
1. Wellness Retreat Homes – Not Resorts, But Residences
So just picture this: three timber-stone chalets on a former tea labour plot, sitting in a 17-degree micro-climate where lettuce grows with hopefully very little work.
For a family that calls some where west home, this beautiful chalet could be a holiday destination for themselves or friends and family. Come Winter in Europe, and here’s a delightful holiday home to live seasonally, or to rent out at other times as a beautiful bed and breakfast.
→ Request Cool-Climate Retreat Land
2. Courtyard Villas for People Who Don’t Commute Anymore
In a report published by Upwork in 2021 (the conclusion of which we believe is now out of date), the demand for freelancers in the tech category was expected to continue, “as nearly two thirds of hiring managers plan to increase their use of freelancers in the tech category in the next 12 months.”2
Now rewind: Metropolis Colombo isn’t built for off-grid home offices. But the outskirts of Colombo, or the beautiful countryside, they can be. Courtyard villas with solar roofs, sound-isolated work pods, and rainwater capture… And all the while you’re working for a company based many nautical miles away.
3. Historic Trade Homes
In south London, along Streatham’s railway, builders once completed a Tesco store with 250 homes built above, behind, and around it. It wasn’t as a fad, but because modern planning encourages retail developments to include residential space. The result: streets that could come alive at all hours, and homes that anchor families and businesses.3
This is something that is popularly seen in the United Arab Emirates and in the context of modern living, towers that stand atop malls and supermarkets.
Sri Lanka already has streets with the bones of this concept -modest shopfronts, upper floors once used as homes, and courtyards built that bring a beautiful historic vibe rather than just sporting land titles.
4. Historic Rentals for Remote Professionals to Invest in Story and Space
What of a quiet renaissance that could happen along Sri Lanka’s historic streets. Diaspora investors – perhaps families who grew up in Colombo, Galle, Nuwara Eliya return not to invest in the tallest towers in a noisy city, but to revive beautiful old townhouses. They’d buy historic properties, refurbish them, and rent them to freelance professionals working for companies abroad looking for not just a space, but a story to live.
We’re not talking about anonymous flats or cookie-cutter apartments. We’re talking about beautiful historic characterful buildings.
→ Find Character Rental Properties
5. Specialty Commercial Spaces
Instead of speculative complexes, diaspora investors can develop purpose-built units -compact warehouses for e-commerce sellers, hygienic food-processing rooms for export-oriented brands, and plug-and-play work hubs for freelancers serving overseas clients.
These properties can be given on short term or long term rent through simple, upfront transactions, with clear ownership and no financial engineering. What’s being traded alongside space, is it’s utility: electricity that doesn’t trip, water that’s reliable, layouts that make work easier.
Spaces that specialty businesses would pay for without the extra headache of managing a property.
→ Request Specialty Commercial Units
6. Neighbourhood Retail Pods – Selling The Convenience Layer
By acquiring a modest plot beside an upcoming apartment development, for a diaspora investor a smart strategy could be to develop compact retail pods. 4 to 10 small commercial units designed for everyday needs. Think pharmacies, repair services, cafés, tailoring, laundromats, co-working nooks -you know, the kinds of places people walk to, not drive across town for.
These units are sold or rented through straightforward ownership transfers, not bundled schemes. Each shop becomes its own independent asset, tradable on its own merits.
The apartments are already paid for and moving in. An investor merely is the community service juncture for residents to gravitate to perhaps the closest, easiest services.
It isn’t about building bigger. It’s about owning a slice, a layer of the city that people need to use every single day.
→ Find Apartment-Adjacent Retail Plots
- The Sun – https://www.the-sun.com/lifestyle/10776508/bulgaria-home-mortgage-price-living/[↩]
- Upwork – Future Workforce Report 2021: How Remote Work is Changing Businesses Forever – https://www.upwork.com/research/future-workforce-report[↩]
- The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/sep/01/supermarkets-live-over-the-shop[↩]