UK, Ireland / Do people in Poland live "better" than here in the UK? [150]


What has European Union to do with anything?


That could be one reason. Poland has over 3 x lower population density than England and far less foreign and local tourists.

Life / Mobile PAYG - ringing from Poland to the UK. [4]

lebara.pl/prepay/taryfy

Lebara Poland > United Kingdom:

Fixed: 9gr/min
Mobile: 39gr/min
SMS: 29gr /SMS

Lebara Poland > Lebara United Kingdom 0.19 zł/min

Life / ATM's in Poland with Euro withdrawal facility? [12]

I agree, ATMs with euro will have extra fee, as euro is not Polish currency and they must earn somehow for themselves. Especially at the airport it must be expensive.

Check Euronet ATMs


here is list of ATMs with Euro in Warsaw:
euronetpolska.pl/index.php?m=maps&m_2=results&id=254&district_id=0&city_id=2&street_id=0&service

Real Estate / Buying a property in Poland to rent out from the UK [82]

You can invest in a found which invests in various business real estates. For example:
skarbiec.pl/srn

Here you have an article about investing in real estate:


inwestujtu.pl/inwestowanie-nieruchomosci

Study / How do Polish universities compare with those of other Central/Eastern European countries? [7]

They're not covered because just few of them are very good. Look at any ranking, for example:

timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-12/world-ranking/region/europe

301-350 Jagiellonian University Poland
301-350 Charles University in Prague Czech Republic
301-350 University of Warsaw Poland
350-400 University of Tartu Estonia

Or this Chinese ranking:

201-300 Charles University in Prague
301-400 Jagiellonian University
301-400 University of Warsaw
301-400 Eotvos Lorand University
401-500 University of Ljubljana

If you consider an University out of this list then probably you don't gain anything over studying in China.

If you consider Eastern Europe because of low costs, then maybe you would like to consider also:

Portugal is quite cheap and it has few decent universities:

1 201-300 University of Lisbon Portugal
2 301-400 University of Porto Portugal
3 401-500 University of Coimbra Portugal

Greece became very cheap (especially rents in recent years and has few good universities)
301-400 University of Athens Greece
401-500 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece

Generally cheap countries have lower salaries and salaries you can see here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

And in case you don't want to study necessarily in the best universities in the world, just the best in Poland, then there are few rankings, just not published in English:

forsal.pl/artykuly/798019,perspektywy-2014-ranking-uczelni-wyzszych-w-polsce.html
blogi.newsweek.pl/Tekst/spoleczenstwo/639811,uniwersytety-polskie-naga-smutna-prawda.html
wprost.pl/ar/442005/?pg=0

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

So my information wasn't correct. Are there in UK any places where it's the same easy to find tenant as in Wrocław or Kraków? How much taxes doesn't house/flat owner has to pay in UK? Poland doesn't have cadastral tax, does UK have?

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

@superuser: Check this article metrohouse.pl/?idNode=135&newsId=496
Here you have comparison of profitability of this business in various cities. Katowice is on top. (it doesn't take into account potential for price growth in those cities)

Basically Poland gives one of the biggest returns from rent in Europe, so it may be a good idea to invest money in such way. There are even companies which manage your apartment. They would find tenants and take care of the apartment for some fee, so you don't even have to live in Poland.

@inWrocław: Yes I know about Berlin. On average it has higher apartment prices than Warszawa or Wrocław, but it's a big city, so differences between neighborhoods can be bigger than in Wrocław, and thus some apartments may be cheaper. That's why Berlin's houses seem to be better investment than Wrocław's or Warsaw's in the long term. Prices there increased substantially in recent years too (because of low interests in eurozone). Berlin still has 2 x lower apartment prices than for example Munich, because it pays little and has relatively big unemployment when comparing to other big German cities. But this difference should disappear in the long term as it has been disappearing until now. And that's true that Polish construction quality, not to mention design land management lacks greatly to Germany.

That's why from financial point of view immigrating to Poland has no sense. Also German nature is very similar to Polish, as it's neighboring country. So it has sense to choose Poland over Germany only when it's about people. And perhaps it's not Wrocław being expensive, but Berlin being cheap.

forsal.pl/artykuly/829451,powrot-do-przeszlosci-w-mieszkaniowce-polacy-znow-kupuja-dziury-w-ziemi.html




Apartment prices September 2014:

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

But the big part of apartment prices going down is inflation. According to Ministry of Finance website (inactive link disabled ):
finanse.mf.gov.pl

inflation between January 2007 (peak of housing bubble) and October 2014 was 23.64% And around this much you should be able to get if you're putting your saving during that time on highest interest deposits.

To make it easier to imagine 400 000 PLN worth flat in 2007 would cost now 323 514 PLN if no inflation, but simple prices adjust.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

This blogger regularly presents the best PLN deposits in each month: appfunds.blogspot.de/
For example here for October: appfunds.blogspot.de/2014/07/najlepsze-lokaty-i-konta-bankowe-lipiec.html
there are many websites comparing them:
bankier.pl/lokaty/porownaj-lokaty/10-tysiecy-na-3-miesiace

Currently the biggest interests are for 3 months deposits. Since around 1 year SKOK
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sp%C3%B3%C5%82dzielcza_kasa_oszcz%C4%99dno%C5%9Bciowo-kredytowa
are also insured by BFG
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankowy_Fundusz_Gwarancyjny
so they are same secure as the smallest banks. The guy from this blog suggests skok.wolomin.pl as having good finances (low chance of bankruptcy) and deposits with high interests. I have some deposits there, but opening account was little hard there, as their branches are quite small, many people, slow procedures.

But why don't you like 1 year deposits? If you really need the money you will just loose interests.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

That overcrowding is caused mostly:
- by the fact that Wrocław belongs to just few cities where are good payed jobs (as for Poland)
- 83' (+/- 5 years) born demographic boom children have just moved there from their towns and villages
- Poland has relatively small urbanization comparing to the west and it catches up now, because jobs in villages become less interesting and those in cities more. And as I said only few cities offer enough jobs and high enough salaries to pay for rent and live.

As for your strategy to wait. I think it's a good idea, provided that you buy with cash and you get interests from this cash now (in PLN it's possible to get 4% net per year just from deposit). If you want to take a debt and buy, then probably you're wasting money for renting your current place now. (you should compare how much you spend renting and how much you get from interest). Everybody would like to buy, when prices are at it's minimum, but it's impossible to predict when the minimum will happen. If you're interested in secondary market, then prices seem to go down all the time:



You can try buying when prices rise for 2 full years for example. Then IMHO you have little bigger chance to buy just after the lowest price happened, than when buying now, when prices fall continuously for few years. And factors of increasing population in Wrocław will not be so strong in the future, because demographic boom has finished and urbanization will not be increasing so much in the future. But factors are important for somebody investing for decades, not for somebody who just wants to have his home.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

I meant this link: appfunds.blogspot.nl/2014/10/deweloperzy-znowu-na-plusie.html But I've just translated you most of related conversation :)

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

They talk about it in comments to the article which I've just linked.



somebody answers:



next answer:



and somebody notices:



These are just comments. I don't know more than what this article says.

Law / Bank Account in Euros - Is it possible to negotiate exchange rates to zloty with a Polish bank? [24]

you're right it's 0.2% which is 0.002 * converted amount. I wrongly remembered that it's 0.001 times value.

Law / Bank Account in Euros - Is it possible to negotiate exchange rates to zloty with a Polish bank? [24]

Use walutomat.pl for money exchange. Only condition is that you need to understand Polish, because the website doesn't have English language and have eur and pln bank account in one of the banks: PKO BP, PEKAO S.A., BZ WBK, BRE Banku, Banku Millennium, Alior Banku, ING Banku Śląśkim. They charge around 0,001% of converted money (discount over 200 000 PLN per month).

If you don't have account there or want to do it faster or don't speak Polish, then check rates of this online cash exchange service: cinkciarz.pl. Walutomat has little better exchange rates which you can see here: walutomat.pl/kursy-walut

Click on the bottom left "Wymiany w Walutomacie" in order to see how real exchanges differed from forex rate. They will be marked with dots.

Law / What documents are required for dependant visa for Non-EU citizen holding work permit in Poland? [6]

Read here: migrant/Visas.html or send them question if you don't find enough information.

Work / Moving back to Poland after 8 years in the UK (19 years old, currently studying HND in Business & Management) [4]


Study Business and Management in Poland only if you can get accepted to Warsaw University or Warsaw School of Economics. Other universities don't guarantee a job for graduates of Management.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

Maybe you will find it interesting: appfunds.blogspot.nl/2014/10/deweloperzy-znowu-na-plusie.html
The most important points for biggest cities of Poland:
- time of new apartment sales was decreasing until 2014
- companies sale as much apartments as in 2006
- 30 - 40% of apartments is bought by cash, which people don't want to invest into low interest deposits
- return on construction investments of the biggest companies is quite high - around 18% (return from investment in Wrocław is the biggest. In 2008 it was 4% only)

- construction costs are slowly falling since 2008 (that and falling interests could explain previous point) (it's around 2200pln/m2 in Wrocław now)
- transaction prices are slowly falling since 2008, but transaction prices for new constructions in Wrocław are rather stable since 2008. For old houses they dropped from 6000 to 5000 pln/m2 and for new they fluctuate around 5500 during that period. I think other article were showing prices going down also for new in Wrocław?

Work / Suggestions for starting a business in Poland ( I have 50/60,000 USD ) [59]

I would discourage you from opening yet another bar. It's the 1st idea which Poles have after gathering a little bit of money. Because of that most of these businesses don't last more than few years. Funny is that often after one business fails, then the next person tries opening some other bar in the same place.

Try something what would require know how, not just small money.

Real Estate / Sub rent and stolen deposit (renting a flat in Warsaw) [6]

I don't know about Poland, but in Germany you can get insured against a need to use a lawyer. You pay around 20eur per month and in case you need a lawyer to protect your rights insurer pays instead of you. But then it would be similar calculation as you have now. 20 eur * 12 = 240 eur = 1000 PLN. So in case you have do deal with so small things you will loose more on insurance.

Study / Would it be better to study in Poland or Canada? What is also a useful degree to study? [6]

As a citizen of Poland you can take advantage of free education in western european countries. For example Scotland has free studies and in English. Non English speaking countries offer it too:

telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9447458/Study-abroad-Where-to-study-in-Europe...-in-English.html


What do you mean Polish studies? Studies in Poland or you want to study Polish language?

UK, Ireland / Polish TV in Ireland - is it possible to get access to it here? [6]

looknij.tv advertises itself a lot recently. There is weeb.tv too.

UK, Ireland / Polish TV in Ireland - is it possible to get access to it here? [6]

It's maybe not invasive, but ugly when sticking out of a window or taking unnecessarily space when put on a balcony.

UK, Ireland / Polish TV in Ireland - is it possible to get access to it here? [6]

for example that: polsky.tv/shop.html. But they're all illegal, because most of Polish tv providers don't have right to sell their content abroad.

Work / Suggestions for starting a business in Poland ( I have 50/60,000 USD ) [59]

Poland does not have so many venture capitals as western countries. With your 50 000 USD you can become one and finance a small IT startup. To learn about companies which need financing check:

startups.pl/startups,polskie
mamstartup.pl

But mind that startups is risky business and you have less than 10% chance of success, so investing have sense only if you have much more money than 60 000 USD, but this much you're ready to risk and potentially burn.

Work / What is deducted from a salary in Poland apart from Income tax? [155]


In my example the company will tell you that they will pay you 10 000 if you are a company/contractor. If you will be applicant for a job and they have the same 10 000 pln to spend on you, then you will hear from them 8300 pln - as it is so called "gross salary".

Life / Private investigation firms in Lodz? [3]

Call them, they could think that emails in English are not serious. You will not know if they speak English until you try

If you have cash you can first employ a translator and ask him to do the calling for you

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]


This house would be a nice offer if it was in Wrocław. How much more costs similar house in the city?

Work / What is deducted from a salary in Poland apart from Income tax? [155]

When employer pays 10 000PLN, then it's 8300 gross and employee gets 5849PLN net. Look at this calculator: pracuj.pl/kalkulatory/kalkulator-wynagrodzen.aspx

As a contractor you get whole 10 000 and must pay all taxes and insurances by yourself. You need accountant or tax adviser to find out how you can optimize these taxes. As a contractor you're a company, so you don't have to pay 23% tax for many purchases, which private people must pay.

Life / How many GSM networks really exist in PL? Virgin, Lyca, Play, Era, TMobile, Nju, what else? [7]

You're correct that Poland has one of the biggest number of mobile operator, thus big competition and low prices. But you're mixing virtual operators which just rent infrastructure and do simple sales and advertising with real operators who poses infrastructure.

Those real are just 4: Orange, T-Mobile, Polkomtel (Plus), Play

Moreover these 4 have many brands, like Nju is a brand of Orange.

Work / 20 years old moving to Poland from Canada, is it hard for me to get a job in Poland? [20]

Currently programmers are in big demand all around the world. In Poland programmers earns a lot when comparing to other professions. But there is never guaranty that in 5 years crisis won't hit this industry.