To be honest I'm not so sure about my skills as a mechanic, in old days I used to change breaks and oil, that was a fun work and to change discs with brakes I spent almost the whole day :) however I do have VAG Ross-Tech software and as I mentioned before I'm a programmer so I'm able to fiddle with newish cars, I do however love old cars, I can perhaps polish them, do some auto-detailing work, again this is only for fun, I cannot imagine converting that to profitable business, specially when I make more money now sitting next to my mac...
The rosstech software is very good. Sometimes it directly indicates the source if the problem, other times it gives you an areas which need to be explored to locate the component causing the fault. Correcting paint is something Im quite good at and would love to do in spare time, but I dont have much of it sadly so I do just ours as and when. Average price for a whole car varies by who and where its done. People charge from 300zl to more than a grand per car sometimes.
Rosstech is fantastic, I will able to indicate the faults with my cars and fix the issues myself, it will even provide you with original part number of item you require. I have currently two audi cars and I decided to buy all of the stuff as my biggest worry was that if you go to tradesman, they often don't fix what need to be fixed but they are trying to max out their profits straight away, not all are like that but have noticed. On audi cars that happening less (still happen to one which is RHD) than to the other car brands I used to drive, I do remember there was a huge problem with jag and then bentley. They all seems to go crazy even if bentley is a VAG car really. Anyway I'm glad that this car was sold, it would have been a complete waste in Poland.
Have you thought of trying to add in regular trips to the nearest airport? I know on one visit we bought bus fair from Berlin-Tegel to Szczecin. I am not sure if you could run the whole business that way but it might help make the ends meet.
Indeed, I thought about airport trips to both airports: Krakow and Katowice but unfortunately the bus is too big for that purpose, it's a 30 seater+driver, and usually people with small buses like up to 25 seaters to these sort of trips (I would say 9 seaters mainly), fuel consumption is much lower in them, also they seems smaller and easier to drive, and trust me, you don't want to find yourself in the situation where you having less than 9 people which you need to take...
The venture ended up being marginally profitable but ended up taking up most of the week rather than the one or two days that I had originally planned.
That's what the low-margin business is about. You can find for instance people, who own several 24h stores and make a lot of money barely doing anything but 10-15 years back they were like zombies working 60-70h a week and it took them years to fine the tune and actually make any serious money out of it.
If you do decide to make the jump into property, there really are many avenues you can explore, all offering solid yields and a good chance of capital gain.
I won't lie, I'm interested in any options which could be profitable here in Poland, I would like to have some sort of investment where I don't need to constantly stress and stretch myself, I don't want to spend much of my time either (not at present and not too much), however my wife has some time during the day available and she can invest that time wisely. Ideally something which can be done while at home and what will bring her let's call it minimum Polish wage to start with... My main problem here is knowledge and experience in Polish market... I'm hoping to pick it up soon. At the moment I have days where I think whole idea of making a move here was a huge mistake but other days I think fairly positive about it and I can see bright side... I'm really not sure of my feelings, but trust me I don't have huge expectations. I rather build something up for future or "rainy days", I don't want to rely on any money saved back in UK or any to do with heritage, this would be only touched when my daughter (or kids if we will have more) would be an adult and once it won't be to young to lose all of it (we all did silly things when we were young, I know these things are unavoidable but at least when the right age come it all will be fine, or shall I say should be fine, nothing is certain) :)
Hi Luke, i am not sure what your financial position is, but if you have a property, or the cash to buy property in the uk, you could live well in Poland off the rental money, no risk and and it would be an appreciating asset for the future.
I was indeed thinking to do that but with mortgage as otherwise I would not see the return of investment for decades! My only concern is third party fees such as agency fees( my mum cannot look after it so agency seems to be only sensible option) also insurance on renting did go up a lot, places I consider are Kingston upon Thames and Surbiton, I know the area quite well and these are very popular places for students. What I ideally like to see is some return after maximum of one year from investing money... I had looked at sites like finansowo.pl and kaktus.pl this seems to be ok if you want to try and play with up to 5K PLN, that way you can consider your iTunes purchases and online subscription for Money Week sorted so some of the entertainment can be paid off, it's a good start and fun... However I'm thinking about some more serious investments, ideally into some business ventures as these only can bring you more profits, there is more risk thought, as I discovered with bus business, but wheels are moving, it did made some money, not enough as monthly profit seems to be in a region of about 430 PLN after petrol, driver, ZUS and insurance is paid off. Of course any failure will cost probably about 1k- anything but we don't know...
Luke, I still owe you a proper answer from earlier, but have you considered getting your wife to open a nursery/creche? They are funded by central government (even if private), and there's due to be a huge deficit in nursery places in the next school year. Furthermore, your wife doesn't need to be qualified as a teacher to be the headteacher - and it would certainly bring her more than minimum wage. It would also give you a place for your daughter to attend without the fear of being left with moronic cabbage-feeding directors :)
Luke84 I must admit I thought about you while i was following our local school bus up the lane, the thing is some kind of old Russian banger with smoke pouring out of it , the engine cover had swung open, for the life of me I would not want to think what the state of the brakes and suspension was like.
The bus company must be making money, but to compete against these people you would have to run the same dodgy rust bucket and i'm sure like me you would think about the kids safety first.
When I moved to Poland I did think about investing some of my money here but for for the life of me, but as a newbie I cannot see a way of making a traditional business work here, certainly it is tough to try and compete with local businesses who have the "Insider" contacts and knowledge.
Maybe something unique and new to Poland would work?
I have run and setup companies around the world, but for me personally at this moment Poland would be a bridge too far for my skill set.
But some people and companies that come to Poland do manage to do well here, fair play to them.
Property in the uk is a safer investment. Its far larger and more liquid market with safe haven status the nearer you get to london. Due to this prices are a little inflated in areas and so the yield is less. The lower the risk the lower the yield, if something is priced correctly. In the UK you are looking at 3% yield in London at best, outside maybe 5 or 6% for a good property if lucky. In Poland, weve seen a correction and some regions havent at all recovered from the 2008 and 2011 crashes. The biggest cities have good liquidity but even so, nothing on the scale of the biggest in the UK. You are rewarded with a higher yield which is something current while in the long term, there is the expectation of greater capital growth than in a safer market such as the UK. Asset values in emerging markets are prone to greater swings than of those in developed markets and its important to recognise this when preparing an exit strategy before you invest. You can limit these swings by purchasing well, a highly desirable asset will always sell faster and for a better price than a less desirable one. As far as liquidity is concerned you can make this work for you when purchasing - forcing a lower buying price.
Of course any failure will cost probably about 1k- anything but we don't know...
This is very important. Any business venture not only has to make a profit but has to make enough money over time to cover the cost of fixed asset depreciation, maintenance and eventual replacement. Not many people consider the latter when appraising profitability.
This sounds really nice, she just went with a little to the bedroom so I will talk to her about that tomorrow :) I really like that idea, I must do some research, do you know on what sort of investment we are talking about? Friend of mine have few nursuries for elderly people back in UK and he makes really healthy profit on that, to do that properly in Poland, you need proper stuff, building etc, you will be lucky to close within 4M PLN in the first year. I would love to hear more about nursery for children, this sounds really nice.
I fully agree with you, I have 100% respect for anyone who succeeded in Poland, this isn't an easy market, I must say that UK is much easier, when I was in my early 20's I was able to setup carwash business back in UK, used to "rent" 4 local car parks and have Polish people working for me, everyone was happy back then until loads of Romanians and Bulgarians come around and swallowed entire market, then it stopped to be profitable. This is only one example. Here to do something you must have loads of money, make sure you pay for all of these ZUS, accountants, and other professional before you even start, I was under the shock when we received the letter that we need to pay some transport tax which was 2.2K per year, this is before you make any money :)
In terms of bus, if anyone needs it I'm more than happy to do some deal, I will need to ask wife and father in law first to see if it is available (there is two more drives this months where one is 3days long)
You mention for the elderly, yes in the UK it was a very lucrative business up until recently. Here in Poland, the government doesnt pay for care and that means relying on private only. Yes you will get some Germans sending their loved ones to Polish homes but there arent that many, they prefer to take on Polish nurses in Germany. When/if the government starts to cover the cost of care for all old people, then this will be a huge business. But there is a massive hole in the government pension pot and I dont think we will see care paid for within the next 20 years even.
Nursery/playschool all I can say is my eldest attends a playschool and we pay about 400zl/m after you include all the top up activities. The playschool is government supported but used to be privately run. However, competition from other playschools in the area which were government supported meant they either had to drop their prices or become government funded which is what they did. The owners seem to do ok from it, certainly enough to put their daughter through university.
I know that UK seems safe but there are still middle man prices such as agency fees and insurance which indeed can be really expensive. Also mortgage these days are not that great as I used to get before, I was 21 when I purchased my first 4bed house and I had some money on top to do roof extension and convert it to 5bedroom. I was able to rent out couple of rooms to students (friends of mine at that time) and pay that off within 7 years, not sure if that would be possible these days... Back then, when I was 21 my earnings were around 25K so there was nothing major at all! Again these days with a wage even of 35K and 10-20% deposit I don't think you can get a good deal... It might be actually worth to wait 5-10years and buy property there for cash, that way insurance will be cheaper ( for some reason properties under mortgage has tendency to be costly when insuring), also will not pay % for mortgage so there would be only agency fee and tax to be dealt with, that would be ok but for now I would really like to see cogs moving on Polish market.
Hi Polishinvestor,
Didn't know how the pension scheme work in Poland but this seems to be beyond the measure, I believe that everyone deserve to leave this world with full respect and let say smile on face. What you described it sounds like an nightmare, I feel so sorry for all of these people who worked hard for entire life, earned some rubbish money and have nothing to live for. Horrible scene which I cannot even imagine in my head.
With nursery I think idea is fantastic, I'm not sure on how much we would need to invest in such business but this sounds like something which my wife would enjoy, end of the day kids are our future, we are not worth much without them and who don't believe that will find out about that later in life... I would love to read about that sort of business in Poland, what courses she needs to do etc. Again we are not greedy and we want something which hopefully can be converted into family business which would be then take over by our kids in future (if they want). Another friend of mine back in UK has international school and she also has nursery, I know she is making a pretty penny out of it, few years ago she was charging around £600 per child per month so that was profitable. Certainly I shall research that market.
I really like that idea, I must do some research, do you know on what sort of investment we are talking about?
Honestly speaking, not very much in the beginning. This is more or less what you need to do :
1) Approach this guy - chrzanow.pl/urzad-miejski/wydzialy/wydzial-edukacji.html - and enquire about establishing a non-public (niepubliczne) nursery. Ask him what the "dotacje" is - it depends from town to town, but you can expect anywhere between 50-100% of the funding given to a public nursery. Normal is about 75%, although some places pay more.
2) Find suitable premises. There's a lot of law about it, but it's all spelt out and you don't need to do any guesswork.
3) Teachers are cheap - minimum wage will find you perfectly qualified people to work 40 hours a week. 4) Obviously - you need to equip it. This wouldn't be much - I'd expect somewhere in the region of 15,000zł maximum per classroom, but I'm sure you could cut that number down.
5) The director of the nursery doesn't have to have any qualifications, but the teachers should be qualified. If you really want to stay on the safe side, you could hire a part time director to oversee the bureaucratic requirements and your wife can run the nursery day-to-day - but there's no need to do it like that.
There's a lot more to it, but ask away and I'll help you the best I can. The nice thing is that if you want to have a small friendly nursery so that you can get to grips with the paperwork/etc, it's perfectly possible. The nicest part - as long as you follow the programme established by the Ministry of Education and obey the law in general, you can run the place how you want. For instance, if you want to have a rule that parents are invited to come and cuddle their kids between 10-11am, you can do it - no-one is stopping you running the place with your own personal touch.
Thank you very much, it sounds like you done so much work for me already, This would be ideal and I'm even thinking if we can perhaps use some space in our house for that, we have 3 story house and we only occupy two top floors, the basement is completely free, it's around 110m2, that has got also separate entrance, at the moment we have there my office (but I can move upstairs), gym (which isn't used much), utility room, and two other rooms, I think this could be converted within a month max, we also have camera recording entrance gate and security subscription so it's safe for kids, also there is a big garden and I can buy some stuff for kids so they can play around etc... Would you think that would be possible at all? When opening nursery I can keep the bus so can organise loads of trips, to zoo, theatre, cinema etc... If that will work out I can build extension to the house (even another 50m2), I'm future I can build something on other land we have (it's close to forest, beautiful area), alternatively can purchase small house and convert it. Would you think that all could be possible? Looks like it will be busy morning tomorrow! Once again I would like to thank you for the idea, ideally I would like to meet you and Polishinvestor (you both helped me a lot) and I would like to take you for a lunch. I'm sure one day this could be possible.
It *might* be - I'm not too sure how it works (my experience has all been with buildings that were already for commercial use), but you might have to deal with the change of use of the basement. But from what you said, there's nothing unmanagable - you've got the location, you've got the outdoor space, you've got the time - I really don't see any obstacles.
But absolutely, it should be possible. You could investigate the idea of an 'outdoor school' - they're very popular in Scandinavia and they're starting to take hold here too. Here's a great article about them - bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/January-February-2012/Force-of-Nature/- from what you say, your location would be absolutely perfect. There are many smaller nurseries alongside bigger ones - there's one close to me that has only 19 kids in a small building, yet the parents love it.
Still, I think the nicest thing about a nursery is that you'd have a place for your own child - and the government pays the bills ;)
I cannot agree more, our little one is 16months old but she love other kids, we need to go with her to playrooms in gallery centres, she just love to play with kids, I know that wife is going tomorrow to one of them :) I think this idea is really nice and also have positive vibes, you doing something which is nice, also a great way to meet new people (parents) and be part of upbringing for children. Again I can help my wife financially, with the website, marketing, advertising etc... She can do the rest. I cannot wait till tomorrow to ask her opinion. This way we can keep that bus as I mentioned before so we don't need to do much planning when organising some outdoor events. I need to check if small conversion of our house will do the job but certainly it should and this shouldn't cost much at all, there is also a little building on the same land which is used to keep garden equipment but it does look like a small one story house, around 40m2 but this can be converted into some sleeping area or maybe a fun area, so many ideas going through my head, can teach kids on how to play tennis, cricket, can organise ballet or piano lessons, organise English classes with songs, karaoke etc, kids can have really nice time, also even if that would be for 20x kids this perhaps can be charged 400pm, that is 8K available, I read somewhere that you don't even need to register it as a company? How exactly that works? Do you still pay that ZUS thing, I have translated that text but to be honest didn't get that bit: biznes.gov.pl/poradnik/-/scenariusz/32-OTWIERAM_PRZEDSZKOLE_LUB_PUNKT_PRZEDSZKOLNY
Once again thank you for the tip, I must explore it even more
also even if that would be for 20x kids this perhaps can be charged 400pm, that is 8K available, I read somewhere that you don't even need to register it as a company?
Well, you should get (the so-called dotacja - I don't know what the translation is) somewhere around 500-600zł from the local government to operate a public nursery per child as long as you follow the rules. The link I gave you earlier is the guy you need to contact tomorrow - he'll give you the exact figure. It will go up each month by a small amount, but judging by the town and so on, I think somewhere around 500-550zł a month per child is likely. There are some rules about whether or not you can charge fees, but I don't remember the details off the top of my head.
Yep, you don't have to register as a company. I'm not actually sure how this works myself - from what I understand, you still have to pay ZUS, but you don't have to register as self-employed, just that you have to register with the local municipality.
Last piece of advice before bed : if you want to get the idea up and running, run as fast as you can for the coming year. There's going to be a hell of a crisis with nursery places this year, which will almost guarantee that you'll be oversubscribed. If you need any advice about pedagogical stuff, feel free to send me a PM :)
Luke,like polishinvestor has said investing in real estate in Poland gets you good returns around 8 to 12% depending upon the property.I have been investing in Poland since 2001 returns are great low taxes(income & real estate).I do only buy commercial real estate as they are hassle free and also I prefer restaurants with liq licenses as if one fails its usually rented again in a month provided you own the equipment.Residentials, I stay away from as they are a hassle in Poland especially if you dont speak the language and returns are not that lucarative.
Also when you sign a lease(umowa) with a commercial tenant i sign 777(tripple net in usa) umowa duly notarised so you just have to get the permission in a week or so to evict the non paying tenant without going through the lengthy court process.Also dont sign a lease longer then 2 years as by polish law one cannot evict a tenant unless he is in default for 2 months then again you have to give him a notice for 1 month,to reduce that time in half you can write him a letter that you took the rent out from his kausia(security) and he has to make up to it in 21 days.
Also be carefull of buying some recently very popular conv-store chain renters as they can get out by giving 2 months notice in first 2 years who usually sign 10 yr leases.
In my opinion if you have the money and want hassle free money is your best way put.Oh I forgot to mention that dont forget you are making 5% minimum invisible money on your property appreciation that in worse case the property prices double in 20 yrs(thats a bonus)
Sorry forgot to add that you dont have to go through the hassle of paying ZUS or company taxes as it can be run individually and paying 8.5%income tax with no deductables thus just an accountant once a year to file your returns and monthly vat what you collect from tenants who also pay media and association fee.And you can also get your 100% VAT back if you are a VAT payer and paid VAT on the property you bought.
I will PM you shortly :) thanks a lot for what you did so far.
Hi Porky pok,
Thanks so much for your input here, I will look at these options, I think this would be fantastic opportunity in year or so, I need to see if UK will stay in EU, otherwise I might be subject to double tax as at the moment I'm paying tax in UK (you cannot pay same tax in both places) but once UK leave UK this could be difficult...
While letting flats can have a lower return (it doesnt have to if you buy well meaning at a good price), its a lot easier/quicker to find a tenant. If you have a good location, it can takes just a few of days and then you vet the prospective tenants. Essentially you decide who gets to live in your flat not the other way around. Often the prospective tenants will be a bit shocked for all the questions, but I just outline that we want to ensure that the other party is able to pay their way through the duration of the umowa, normally 12 months rolling in case of flat letting. The plus side over commerical is that you can buy a few flats for the price of a good commercial and dont have all your eggs in one basket so to speak. So despite prefering commercial we do have a handful of flats for rent although they are located in one building which we own with a small commercial on the ground floor.
As for commercials and giving notice, it has happened to us a couple of times in 12 years but only when those renting were not large companies or chains and location hasnt been the best, otherwise there hasnt been a problem. As I said, location is most important as there are only so many good spots in each city. Although there are some exceptions,I would stay away from banks in large, particularly the ones that have a large swiss loan book such as Getin and Raiffeisen.
I was making some money on side while I was in UK and this was renting out, I have rented couple of rooms in my own house and also renting another 5 bedroom house through agency and I was able to make enough profit renting it as individual rooms, there was of course more hassle doing that but interest was massive. I would probably continue doing that if I will be still living in UK, the idea here is to have my wife busy, I like nursery idea the most but we need to do a lot of research (this should not take long at all), seems also very attractive to wife who will be occupied, she stated that she needs to be busy, because we paying ZUS already I believe this would be only a matter of adding new profession to your business. Renting and money investing is another part of the project Poland, as I mentioned before I don't have much time during the day, saying that I'm sitting on PF, at the moment I have a little less work but this is changing daily. I would like to have my eggs in separate baskets so that way all is safe. I will be also starting a little hosting company this year, I have all what is needed to do so, including knowledge and equipment, I do have some of customers in UK already so it would be easy and straight forward migrating them. This should be a solid way of a income as well.
Plan is to do as much as possible before we both 40, then we can say we have a life under control, I think we are on a good path.
You have mentioned that we should open that business this year, what would you think would be the latest we can do such a thing? Do you have a nursery yourself?
I don't have one myself, but I work for a company that has several - I was involved in setting up one of them from scratch (along with a school), so that's why I'm familiar with the funding and so on.
The latest date - you'd have to ask the local guy responsible for education - it might differ from place to place. I know here that we have to submit the paperwork by the end of May with the list of kids from September, but they might have different rules there. To give an idea, we complete the recruitment process (for kids) by the end of March, but your mileage might vary.
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