Hora Irish Bouzouki?
 

I've been looking at these, wondering if anyone has tried them? Also wondering about VAT charges since I'm in the US and they come from Romania.

I don’t have any experience, but you have 21 hours to try to buy one that’s already in the US…

https://shopgoodwill.com/item/146634739

I have a Hora Mandola (if this helps).
They use good tone woods. The tuning machines are not very good.
I didn't go "Wow!", but I did go "pretty good for the money".
I never upgraded so it cheaply filled a need I had.

Very lightly built - tuners are terrible, tops tend to sink, and it might need fret leveling (not to mention some filing for sharp ends, etc). Tone is pretty harsh.
Still, you can make a functional/playable instrument out of it. https://youtu.be/rFKTzLTirm4

They are sold on ebay on a regular basis. I had a bouzouki model and yes the tuners are terrible and a non standard size. I replaced mine and went with light strings because I heard they were lightly built. I liked it but found the body shape difficult to hold onto. This is not unique to the Hora, it is just the teardrop shape instrument. I tuned GDAE and liked the sound. Hard to beat for the money.