Disparity between land prices and retail price.

Land prices are very cheap in Poland whereas completed houses and flats are relatively expensive. Why is this?

well the time and efford 2 bild.......

ja wel lol joking

Because you are not allowed to buy. I'm serious......when the law changes the prices will go up.

There are so many restrictions preventing foreign folk from buying. This could be it.

Ahhh! I have Polish nationality.

Then now is a good time to buy. But make sure it's with planning permission.

In my opinion the way to make money is by buying an old palace and doing it up.

OK, I'm looking to the South of Krakow for land. The only reason I asked about construction costs is because I'm trying to assess what kind of factor the land price has in total development cost. As far as I can see, presently it is negliable. The development cost (even if it is as low as 500€ per m2) far out-strips the land cost.

There are some great building plots, budownictwo, around. What do you think about speculating on some which are part budo and part rolna to hold 10-20yrs? How difficult is it to get planning permission on the rolna part of a plot once you've built/ sold the budo part?

izzy,

You have moved on to more professional matters. I'm not quallified to give you the advice you require.

izzy, my parents have inherited a small "rolna" plot not far from the center of my city (a small city with 30 thousands inhabitants, no big industry), the city mayor wants to buy it from us for 25 PLN/sq. m., we've been waiting for more than 10 yrs for them to make it "budowlana" plot, because there's no rational excuse for keeping it "rolna".

40 yrs ago, when my grandpa bought it, it was outside the town, 20 yrs ago, when we inherited, it was on the outskirts, now there is a road just 20m distant from the plot, on the other side of the road the are +100 detached houses, 2 blocks of flats, so it's just normal city plot. The "budowlana" price would be (in my city) at least 4-6 times higher (100-150 PLN/sq.m. is still a good bargain, some plots reach 250-300 PLN /sq.m here).

But I guess they'll keep it "rolna" till we give up, sell it to them for 25 PLN and within a few years they change its status to "budowlana" and sell it later to someone for much higher price. Fortunatelly we don't need this money badly, and my parents already accepted the fact they won't get a penny from it, they just intent to leave it for us to inherit in some time.

And trhere was a major scandal recently, which resulted in resignation of our Agriculture Minister/Secretary being accused of accepting a huge bribe for making some "rolne" plots (that were sold by the Agriculture Agency to some investors) into "budowlane".

So yeah, you may speculate on land, wait some 10-20 yrs, but with the current state of affair it's a risky decision, because, I suppose, Poland will try to reach/maintain the position of one of the biggest agricultural producers in Europe, so they may decide to protect "rolne" plots even more, or maybe not, but it's a question of politics, not only a business decision.

Thanks Krzysztof,

Your experience gives me a sense of perspective on the situation. By the way, your mayor sounds like a right sh#t!

Actually, you're completely ... wrong :)
He's a very nice guy, my school teacher back in the 80's, but he has to take care for the city, not for his ex-students.

I said mayor, but I meant the whole City Hall, there are several different departments, some make decisions about "planning" (planowanie zagospodarowania przestrzennego), others negotiate the prices with potential buyers/sellers etc. And the plot is quite small, so I guess he's not even aware of the whole thing,

Of course, the fact that I like him doesn't mean I'll sell for that price :)

and it's not that our City Hall is breaking any rules, that's how the things in Poland look quite often, if they changed the plot to "budowlana" and then bought it from us for a high price, they would probably run into some troubles with the surveillance bodies (like NIK - Najwyższa Izba Kontroli or Wojewoda), I really don't know what are the general guidelines of the Polish government, but I expect them to be not in my favour :)