Dear all, I´m a development manager married with a polish lady. I´m interesting to develop a little touristic project in the polish coast, my favourite region is the Sopot area. Could anyone of you guys let me know how is the current market situation in that area? How much is an acre of land? What kind of developments are under construction right now, if so? is any city better than sopot to make a 50 rooms 3 stars hotel project or a simple 20 apartments condominium block? Anyone related with the real estate in that region?
Miedzyzdroje or Swinoujscie in north-west Poland might be a better location for this type of investment, although there are also thousands of tourists in Sopot as well. Swinoujsce and Miedzyzdroje are closer to Germany so there are many German tourists there looking for good hotels there.
Also need to consider the extremely short season up there! It is cold, grey, the sea is polluted and cold. And as to German tourists, most of them of course prefer better climates and places. For same money invested, there are a lot of places in Europe more attractive and where tourists go almost the whole year round.
And as to German tourists, most of them of course prefer better climates and places.
Actually, a lot of them are oddly drawn to the Ostsee. It's quite a common destination among older Germans that don't want to travel far - a lot of the resorts in zachodni-pomorskie are quite well set up to deal with German tourists for instance.
The prices are crazy. The only buyers would be Polish - for sentimental reasons. Why the **** would somebody pay 2 million zlotys for a smart condo, when they can get the same for half the price in the Costas?
For same money invested, there are a lot of places in Europe more attractive and where tourists go almost the whole year round
Polish one-upmanship rulez - but as you so rightly say, the terrible shi ite climate (and cultural aspects too) are against them. Sopot is "nice", but if I had big money to splurge (as an investor). no where near that "nice."
Lovely for an old boy like me to retire to if I was a very rich man, and could afford an indoor pool or whatever, but otherwise pretty crap actually.
@Dougpol: Absolutely! :). It is not worth it. Except to Polonia only for sentimental reasons and SOME very old folks from former East Germany nobody would go to to Baltic Sea. It is alright for 2 or 3 day visits when already in Poland and no time to go further and that's it. I know several persons (not related to each other) from Gydnia and they all say that they never go swimming there as sea too cold and too dirty.
Yes, there are a lot of other places much better and if not cheaper at least at same prices. I don't personally know about it but often I have seen reports about ... Albania, which is very likely to develop into a (not expensive) summer resort: good climate, nice coastline, including nice beaches, good mediterranean food and it may very well be one of the places to invest in Europe right now (before it gets too expensive). There may also be some Croatian islands not too expensive that still need to be developed.
And yes, like you say, it is very expensive and maybe probably more so than in Croatia, some parts of Spain, Greece and Portugal.
PS: let's compare number of tourists on Baltic Coast and number of tourists in any of the country on Mediterranean Coast, for instance! ;);)
PS: when we think that Batic Sea restaurants serve ..... . frozen fish bought from Carrefour, Tesco, Auchan, itd... it says alot about area. "lol". What I mean is that people moving to some sea coast expect to eat fresh fish, and even to buy it directly from local fishermen.
@Looker! do compare with other places! Who goes to Sopot? some Poles (including a few celebrities to be recognized because abroad nobody would recognize them ;) ) and a few East Germans.
@Roger: Hi! Yes, they do and they are right ;). There is no much fish up there and they are all tiny. Just imagine all the crap from the numerous ships sailing back and forth up there, with all those (Russian but not only) ships cleaning their tanks for instance. Also since closed sea, the crap does not go away and basically the Baltic Sea is not much better than a ... sewer. Better to stick to ... frozen fish! ;)
Equity attractivity is based on Offer Vs Demand. All the comments above focus only on the demand side when they say "Only few germans and russians go to the seaside"
Just an example how this kind of assumption is stupid: Do you know which city is currently the LESS attractive to open a hotel in Poland? Krakow!
Even with the big number of tourists, the explosion in the number of the rooms available made it have the lowest yields in the entire country overall (lower than Lodz!!!)
Meanwhile, the highest yields are achieved in Lublin, Wroclaw and Gdansk. Even with much less tourists than Krakow or Warsaw, those cities have lack of offer, hence the hospitality business there have both higher load factors and yields.
The same can be applied to real estate in general, since i can imagine that the offer in those places can be pretty low.
Way too far away from large centres of population. Although Sopot is rather overpriced for commercial real estate, the area around Gdansk is a better bet, since Swinoujscie is just too far to drive from anywhere that punters with money live.
Who goes to Sopot?
Thousands of people every year - in peak season the main drag there is jammed with people and the hotels are full. The prices there suggest that the consumers are more affluent than average.
@Jon: yes, thousands do but (hundreds of) millions go elsewhere ;). For what it is, far TOO expensive. Croatia and Greece are cheaper (and of course million times better)...
It's true that people from Poland are going abroad more. Croatia used to be popular but got expensive and Athens always seems to have plenty of Poles there (we go there quite often; partly for the reason Poles go - the very low cost of a break somewhere nice and partly for the weather and food) but Sopot is a bit of a strange one and still hugely popular.
Why Sopot is popular is a bit more complicated. It's nothing special at all and in terms of scenery, beaches, architecture, amenities etc compares very badly with an average resort in the UK. It does well financially for several reasons - it's the only seaside resort comfortably drivable from the capital, it's part of a conurbation, it has very little competition from other resorts and importantly, a (recent) tradition has developed of people with money spending a week or two there each year plus of course weekenders. These factors sustain it and keep real estate prices high.
Some of the other places around the Tri-City have greater potential for development although the returns on investments are slow and not interesting enough for major developers.
Yes, Jon, Sopot and area are within easy reach from Warsaw so no big deal to go there and stay for a few days. All the Poles I know (middle-middle and upper-middle class) go to Southern Europe, Turkey and the richest to France (Côte d'Azur, Corsica, Atlantic coast). Not only because of climate, sceney, food but also more and more Poles want to see other things and now a lot of them can. Among the affluent, they'll go for instance to Sopot and area for a few days but will spend their MAIN vacations abroad. Same about me (although I am not one among the richest ;)), if only 2 or 3 days, ok to stay in Poland but if for 1 week of more, only abroad.
For Poles who don't have great financial means (most of them), a last minute deal to Southern Europe and to Turkey/Tunisia will always be better than staying in Poland. On Saturday, a client of mine (expat from Romania) was telling me same re Romanian coast, cheaper for Romanians to go to Greece.
No matter what, Sopot will never be no.1 touristic destination in Europe (or in the ... world)! lol! First of all, the climate is not attractive and there is nothing to do about it.
Among the affluent, they'll go for instance to Sopot and area for a few days but will spend their MAIN vacations abroad.
That is true for the upper-middle class pole. But definitely not for the middle-middle pole. People that have a 2000 zloty salary netto will not go abroad 1 time per year, unless they are youngsters living with parents or unless we are talking about neighbouring countries.
For Poles who don't have great financial means (most of them), a last minute deal to Southern Europe and to Turkey/Tunisia will always be better than staying in Poland.
Sometimes i doubt that you had ever lived in Poland or have any contact with the general pole except those that frequent the same boutiques as you.
The absolute majority of the Poles doesnt have 2000 zloty to spend on holidays in Tunisia, specially having in mind that a family with a kid would spend... 6000 zloty, or more than 2 months of salary (and i am talking about the normal pole, not the lefties bon vivant that you probably know).
All the Poles I know (middle-middle and upper-middle class)
you don't know middle-middle poles or otherwise you would not say that it is easy to them to spend 6000 zlotys on holidays.
@PolAtt: even in "moderate" climates, there are much better resorts (for instance in Western France, Belgium, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany....). Personally I would not call Polish northern climate "moderate" but "cold and humid". When temperature of the sea is something like 15° in the middle of the "summer" sorry, it IS cold and on top of that water is highly polluted. Do compare the number of tourists on the Baltic Coast vs. ANY other coast in Europe! ;) and you'll draw your conclusion.
When temperature of the sea is something like 15° in the middle of the "summer" sorry,
The water in the Baltic Sea is usually about 18 - 20 degrees in the middle of summer (sometimes 22-23), I spend vacations on the baltic Coast very often and I have never seen such low temperatures anywhere (except Kolobrzeg but they have a cold current there).
seatemperature.org/europe/poland/mielno-july.htm - Mielno is an average of 17.7c in July seatemperature.info/july/darlowo-water-temperature.html - It never went above 18c in July last year in Darlowo seatemperature.org/europe/poland/sopot-july.htm - 18.5c average in Sopot (but you have to deal with all the pollution in the Bay of Gdansk)
Meanwhile, you can go to Croatia and enjoy crystal clear warm waters. 22-23c water temperature is quite normal there. No contest!
