Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


Do you tend to "go with the flow" and drive above the speed limit? If so, try to not "go with the flow" and set the pace yourself, at the speed limit, or less. The speed limit is the maximum safe (in ideal conditions) speed for that stretch of road, not the speed to drive at or above. The slower you go, the less chance there is of that stupid cyclist causing you a problem and court case.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]

Is it actually the case that a court would not take into account that a cyclist was any one of these:

drunk
riding without lights at night nor even a (probably mandatory) reflector
on the wrong side of the road

?

Has this sort of rough justice happened to a motorist before?

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]

Some branches have it on the shelf on the Sunday, others the next day. I reckon my one put them out in the afternoon or evening yesterday but officially they said "tomorrow". So, when I visit later, there'll be little left.

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]


Nie! Sorry, I meant shortbread. lol

I'll try Alma's but if you know Sainsbury's in the UK, their Basics shortbread is quite good, or it was last time I was there. Problem is these biscuits are very fattening, more than average.



Not these: Sainsburys shortcake

Food / Which Polish milk brand is closest to UK supermarket style milk? [31]


Where life expectancy was greater (not sure where that was but assuming you're right) that'd not be down to the milk, that'd be down to the omission of various lab made additives in food, not being poisoned by polluted roads and diesel fumes, being more active in their lifestyle, not spending their life fretting about keeping up with the Nowaks, etc etc.

Food / Which Polish milk brand is closest to UK supermarket style milk? [31]

And yet even they draw the line at raw milk, so what does that tell you?

Food / Which Polish milk brand is closest to UK supermarket style milk? [31]

So, this is all propaganda then about the dangers of raw milk?!


fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.htm

Quite remarkable that in Poland it's "ok" to have raw milk, if that US FDA advice is accurate. I am perplexed, to say the least.

Language / Problems Polish People Have with Learning English [63]

Current link is here
go-proofreader.com/support-files/learnerenglish.pdf

(the other one is dead) and scroll to page 162 for info regarding Polish learners of English.

Food / Where to buy British mature Cheddar Cheese and salted butter in Poland? [289]


Valley Spire is still here, but it has become a tad bland.

Biedronka's cheddar contained animal rennet (podpuszczka) last time I checked. I avoid all such cheeses.

Classifieds / English cuisine week in Lidl shops in Poland [203]


Thanks from me, too.

The Valley Spire is a bit bland, as Jon indeed said a while back. Mine wasn't back then, but seems to be now. I shall be hoping for Hatherwoods (Adams Foods) which is A1.

Unfortunately, the decent fish (cod or haddock) that was sold last time is not included this time. The fish & chips product is not recommended, in fact I'd say it's a load of pollocks. Mine was actually bitter -- perhaps I was just unlucky but there you go. I'd not buy it again. The cheese is yet to show up, officially tomorrow. The shortcake biscuits are too sweet, the marmalade is OK but not sure I haven't had better here in Poland from a local supplier. The tea I didn't buy as it's expensive. All in all, nothing to get excited about this time. Sadly.

Travel / Poland is unsafe for visiting British Citizens ! - so I've been told ... [18]

I agree with some of Smurf's views, I am not sure about all of them.

In this city, there is a marked increase in people living here from other parts of the world. From what I can see, they do OK, no issues except perhaps if they went out somewhere late at night near some boozy pub. As for the homosexual community, I know one or two religious types who (because of their religion, presumably) speak in terms that make me cringe. On the whole, however, I see an increasing number of gay men and women in public than a few years ago and have not observed their receiving any harassment.

Some of the older people here view any foreigner, including English speakers, with suspicion, and I've encountered the odd nasty look and (via a friend) the odd vicious remark in Polish. However, the nice ones outweigh this and one even gave me a keepsake after talking with him (although I returned it to his mailbox some months later with a gift in case he missed it as he was a pensioner).

One thing I do notice is that people who work in some companies or work as estate agents here are far less 'human' than in the UK -- what I mean is if they can see you're not going to be putting money in their pocket they just cut you off like you never existed, in a way that suggests they might lack basic courtesy and the human touch. They don't seem to have any qualms about your knowing that you're just a sales lead and nothing more and to be abandoned if you don't buy there and then. You can call that being unpushy, straightforward and not false, or you could call it mercenary, impatient, resentful and backward. I am not sure which I'd call it. I certainly rarely saw it in the UK but see it here all the time and all it does is seem to hammer home the message that they smile only while they think you're reaching for your greenbacks. I can only assume the hunger (and perhaps struggle) for cash here is much fiercer than in my part of Britain, else why behave in that way? It doesn't win any goodwill for next time.

Life / Many Problems with UPC Broadband in Poland - Anyone Else? [20]

By the way, if you call UPC on their 801 number (the only number I know of) it seems they charge you for calling them from THEIR own number! Seems to be not that cheap either.

Life / Many Problems with UPC Broadband in Poland - Anyone Else? [20]


Same here. Poor customer service with them. Never understood why some people rate them, they seem quite lousy at times and disorganised, muddled, confusing. If they're the best, there's no hope here really.

Off-Topic / Haitch' or 'aitch'? How do you pronounce the English 'H'? [6]

Hey, you can obviously see me on my webcam, how'd you do that?!

Off-Topic / Haitch' or 'aitch'? How do you pronounce the English 'H'? [6]

Which version of English pronounces 'enquiry/inquiry' as 'in kwerry" ? That was the UK native speaker's pron on a cable TV news channel the other day. Is that American or is it just something else?

For any Poles browsing, the original correct pron for H is aitch. But hey-tch is the pron by some, just as 'should of' is used by the same geniuses for 'should've'.

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

If you look here at this link, you can see prices went up sharply in 2006 (or possibly 2003-2005) and have pretty much stayed up since.

An increase in property prices has occurred in quite a lot of countries. In some countries this was followed by a sharp crash, then something of a recovery. If flats were about 3100-3500 per square meter in 2005 and are 5500 a square meter now in the same streets (sometimes more), then prices have not gone down. Indeed, 400-500tys would buy a quite good house in some local streets in 2004. 400tys now just about buys a reasonable flat in the same street.

This is apparently what it's reported Swiss bank UBS has been saying very recently:

Asset prices have indeed in many cases reached stunning levels, quite obviously out of line with 'fundamentals,' for example in credit or government bond markets. The most dangerous of bubbles are deemed to be those in housing markets as their bursting could wreck whole economies.

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

This seller decided their asking price needed to rise 5% after many months on the market. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones. I still cannot understand why in 2014 a flat now costs the same price as a house did 10 years ago in the same street.

• 
  Flat with 5 percent increase this year
  

Real Estate / How can I find out the average inflation/deflation rate for flats/houses over the last 10 years? [3]

Good stuff, thank you Monitor. It's fascinating to me, it really is. No one I know can really work out what's going on with the prices.

Law / NIP REGON database - business start date is shown - but is that a good idea? [7]

Yes. That's similar to what I thought. Thanks for confirming.

Law / NIP REGON database - business start date is shown - but is that a good idea? [7]


Would you be so good as to tell me how long your business has been running in Poland? Under 1 year, under 2 years? Etc.

Work / Virtual offices in Poland. Anything similar to AllDayPa (All Day PA)? [9]

Thanks Alex.

It's legal I assume? But the main issue is that someone can see when a business commenced, and that can harm confidence.

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

I dare say you're right. FWIW been around Wroc today and quite astounded at how many new blocks are going up from Partynice to Opolska to Bardzka to Klecina. Build build build.

I don't know if this is to be taken as a bull market in apartments commencing, but an acquaintance whose word I trust told me some 80m2 flat near him (Partynice borders) sold in about a week. A quick check reveals it was not actually cheap, it was pretty much the usual price you'd expect these days (high in my opinion!) although it was in good condition. Either the seller got lucky or it's a good estate and so sold quickly (or it's not true, but I doubt he'd lie to me, no reason to do so).

Well, I think my acquaintance only knew half the story. Yes it's true the for sale banner was only up for 5 days before the flat sold, but a check on Trovit reveals the flat was actually bigger than 80m2, and was reduced over some months by approx. 20% until a buyer came along. If the buyer then rounded the price down, the reduction would be nearer 30%. I guess that compared to some other flats on the same estate where they're asking a fair amount more, that one was "cheap" but still a lot of cash considering local wages. For that price, I'd rather have a house.

So, this is a typical good but not spectacular estate in Wrocław.

In Q3 2006, a 70-80m2 off-plan (before being built) large estate flat would set you back 3300PLN per square metre excluding finishing. Off-plan prices are generally cheaper, of course.

Today, even after the fall in prices, the same flat on the same estate finished is fetching 5700PLN per square metre on average.

Of course, a finished flat does cost more. But even so, have wages doubled since 2006? No.

The demand is driven by employment hopes real or imagined, and most probably credit availability.

In a nutshell: the prices have increased hugely since 2006, even with the supposed correction in prices Wrocław 'suffered'.

None of this makes any sense to me, but the rises in the UK didn't and don't either.


Compare and contrast that with another part of Wroclaw just 1km away from the first. There, a year 1998 flat of the same size purchased for 265000PLN in Q2 2005 is still unsold at an asking price of 350000PLN now (and has been unsold for several quarters).

So, someone who bought a 1998 secondary market flat a full year before the 2006 off plan flat, for approx. 10% more money than the off plan flat, finds the value of their flat has gained much, much less than the buyer of the off plan flat on a plot 1km away -- something like a 20-30% gain versus 70% over the period 2006-2014. And this disparity exists between two private estates quite close to each other, both reasonably 'leafy' and near green spaces. In fact the flat that performed more poorly is even near a tram line when as the other one is only near a bus.

Throughout other parts of Wrocław, prices have probably done similar things between close estates, but this seems the most stark example I know of.

However, even on that same estate that displays little in the way of depreciation compared to the other 1998 one, a detailed look at Trovit reveals at least 2 or 3 incidences of flats listed in early or mid 2013 for higher prices than now, and those same flats relisted this year at a lower price (approx. 3% lower). Checking through some other sources and search engines, it looks exactly like even those flats didn't sell and were instead rented out until this year when the owners have tried again to sell, for a 2-3% lower asking price.

So, in final summary at this juncture, although some asking prices might be up (while many that I have researched are actually down, see above) it remains to be seen if they're actually higher selling prices.

But here's an example of how asking prices HAVE leapt 20% in some cases.

Similar size flats, duplex, same estate. Last year 329K 71m2.
This year 399K 68m2.

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


Why's everyone leaving Wrocław off the charts now? Is everyone unsure and so not including the stats??!

From what I can gather, other than realistically priced property, things are not bouncing along nicely here. Yet, I am pretty sure I've seen some higher than before asking prices along with the 'nowy cena' reductions on other properties.


It does seem that way. There are some people here who seem to be totally minted, some live on otherwise normal estates near me. I often want to say to them "really nice new car, won the lotto?' but I know that'd be asking for a slap and make me late for my bus...

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

On what are the press, such as NPE, basing their stats? Asking prices? A small sample of sales skewing the figures?
Should the price of a home in Wrocław today be the same, less, or more than the same home in 2005 or 2006, for example? What percentage plus or minus 2005's should the price be, approximately?

I ask because I have been taken aback at the prices private people & developers are asking for flats and houses, and they refuse to negotiate much. When it comes to flats, it is especially interesting because there are many blocks being built all over the city and yet the prices seem to be assuming everyone has a good salary and is happy to pay about 5400 a square metre (in one new estate case near me 7500 a square metre). The cheapest example I could find on a flat was a seller willing to 'only' take a 20% profit on the price they paid in 2005. When it came to houses, sellers were similarly minded. Therefore, I assume a 20% increase on the 2005 price is a bargain?!

An example is a pretty ordinary new flat near the TV station that was 240K (finished) in 2003.
A fag packet calculation says that today it's worth about 470-500K.
I assume the same flat hit something like 600-650K at peak Q2 2008.
This seems to me to be a function of credit setting the value, not wages.

It seems remarkable to me that selling prices in Wrocław are 20% higher than they were in the not exactly cheap middle of 2005 and that's considered a bargain now according to many. I also marvel at how many flats are being built everywhere and the developers are pretty much building on every bit of land, so sure are they of buyers. I can only assume there is going to be company after company with employees opening in the city and these builders reckon they're all going to need a roof over their head. The volume of flats suggests they must be very sure of demand from somewhere, surely?

Of course, there are a number of advertised secondary market flats and houses where the prices can be seen to drop if ads are tracked. However, generally, they very seldom drop to what seems to make sense financially before they either sell or get withdrawn and offered for rent.

Apparently, developers are not feeling much of a slowdown and report rising reservations and are building more and more with optimism :

The beginning of 2014 . Was for poor housing loan market . What, then, explain the very good sales performance of developers?

The Polish Bank Association ( ZBP ) calculated that after fatal for the housing loan market last year , this will be better , including through budgetary subsidies under the government program " apartment for the young" . However, the data for the first quarter , which gave on Thursday PBA, are less optimistic. Banks granted because only slightly more than 41.9 thousand . housing loans , or nearly 8 percent . less than at the end of 2013.

Of course, I have no idea if it's spin or accurate. It is what it is. I can report locally Porsche are building a new showroom. So either we're in a credit bubble still, or miraculously 13% unemployment and small wages gets you a Porsche somehow.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


Not really much use here, very little on the screen and the map lacks street name detail. I uninstalled it. Maybe it's one that will take off in the future, though. Is crowd-reporting of police patrols etc legal?


Reasonably similar here, on the outskirts and quitter areas, drivers more readily stop for pedestrians and behave. There are exceptions, however, and some drive far too fast down what to my eyes look like village streets near or in Wysoka.

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


Happens here all the time, and this city seems to be getting busier and busier with each passing month. Roads near me are much busier than they used to be, and guy I know who works in a hospital told me the population here is closer to 900K than the official sub 700K. And many of the newbies are aiming bikes in every direction or let loose behind the wheel of a car! At least I've had the decency to largely stay off the roads and stick to using the buses :)

Travel / Driving in Poland, are there any rules at all? [149]


Hmm, but if everyone 'made a bloody nuisance of themselves' by driving under the speed limit, that would be 'the flow' and roads would be a lot safer.

Start with the man in the mirror, be the change that you want to see.


Here in Wrocław, some of those morons are on the pavements and come at you at high speed. We're not talking backstreets, but the main streets. They don't want to use the proper cycle lanes running alongside the tram route because, heaven forbid, they might have to wait at a red light to turn into Hallera or Wisniowa. Some of the cyclists here should be prosecuted without a shadow of a doubt.


You're probably a pretty good motorist then, simple as that, because the police stop plenty of drivers here. I see it all the time. I also saw my first ever j-walker (or whatever the word is) get a ticket the other day. Btw a friend got pulled over by the police in an unmarked 4x4 or similar not so long ago for allegedly driving erratically. I was in the car at the time, and it was a local B-road.


They stopped being used widely in the UK in the 1980s, although they enjoyed a lot of popularity when they were made legal. I was a breaker, as CB enthusiasts were known, and spent hours on air each weekend and some evenings. Some truckers probably still use them, but the number of breakers has seriously dropped from what I can hear when I try channels 14 or 19 in the UK on occasion. Sometimes just static, nary a voice.

Work / Moving to Poland with Family - cost of living and salary? [46]


I can't answer the schooling question, other threads can do that.

Regarding vegetarianism, there are several vegetarian restaurants. Having used some of them, I'd say they're OK although one of them is pretty poor from what I sampled.

For cooking at home, if you're good at vegetable and lentil recipes you'll be OK. If you hope to find prepared vegetarian ready meals or TV dinners, there are very few options. Dried soya pieces in bags are available, but there's a limit to what you can do. Also a few other soya and flavouring (add water and cook) products but they're heavy and not particularly good. Tesco occasionally stocks vegetarian chicken nuggets. There are some vegetarian salami-style products in some supermarkets and also health food stores.

see also polishforums.com/work-43/pln-month-enough-people-live-wroclaw-69895/ et al

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

Must be Lun-dun, Norwich or Cambridge, right?

Apparently, prices in Wrocław are UP 14.4% year on year !!

Doesn't that outpace even London, England? The question is, why? And how? And is it true?


And apparently you have reason to cheer if you're an owner in these cities too...


Flight of fantasy or reality? It all sounds incredible. I'm not sure because I am not currently keeping a close eye on things but from a quick glance again today I think some asking prices look to be up. Where can I see what they actually sell for? Also looking around the town, I am pretty sure I still see the same old for sale banners hanging around for ages.