Real Estate /
Residential real estate values go down in Poland [455]
secondly your belief of state control smell of returning to the bad days of the 50's.
State control of municipal housing, allocated according to merit and need as opposed to being in the right place at the right time - what's wrong with that?
Babcia purchased her property at market value of that time, to Westerners this was peanuts.
Babcia certainly didn't pay market value - like the UK's 'right to buy' - the flats were sold for peanuts, even by Polish standards. Or worse still, Babcia didn't buy at all - and she's still living in her huge muncipally owned flat.
Renting is much cheaper than buying right now in Poland - but really, people from the West hardly bought much compared to what the Poles bought. It might be more accurate to say that Poles were the ones inflating their own market, especially in border towns where they could work illegally in Germany. I know one guy who bought himself a nice flat in the early 90's by doing exactly that.
Poles for a generation were forced to rent from the state and now want to be home owners overnight.
Actually - they weren't. There were plenty of flats that were privately owned during Communism - many of the "Spoldzenia MIeszkanowa" type flats were bought upon construction. The real problem is - as I said - the younger generation is priced out of the market by a squeeze of those with foreign income and older people who are inheriting flats.
Germany has a high percentage of people who rent.
Funny you mention this - one big problem that Poland has is that people tend to buy a property 'for life'. They were the ones who took on huge mortgages - and when the CHF strengthened, they were the ones in trouble. I don't understand it - as you say - sensible is to buy small and then work your way up.
But really - people from the West are a minor influence on the Polish market, especially because most of them buy new flats anyway.
The solution is to move to Srem and also (nonsensically if you are going to live in the sticks) to give up your car.
You can have a car, but give up the driving to work. Saves a lot of cash.
There's really not that much difference between supermarkets when it comes to food - all it means is less variety. As for cheapest furniture - van hire isn't expensive in Poland. And people seem to manage just fine in the UK with living outside cities - why is Poland so important?
Poland will take another generation before those places are livable.
There's plenty going on culturally in these places, but nothing "sexy". Perhaps that's the problem - image before substance.
(I'm in the middle of organising a cultural project in one of these towns as we speak - and the support has been far higher than in Poznan)
how would people now finance the repurchase of babcia's apartment - the banks do not have that volume of credit to dish out even after 20 years of capitalizm. And surely they would also want deposits so taking that volume of cash out of the rest of the economy would be crippling.
It's too late now to solve things - the only thing that can be done is to put a stop to any sales of muncipal flats, and to make sure that there is no "inheritance".
The state could easily have charged a market rate. Would've made sense, what with the general use of shock therapy.
As for how they would finance it - they wouldn't. Babcia could continue to rent from the State, and if she can't afford 2000zl payments, then she can downsize. As I said - no room for sentimentality.
