Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

Are you qualified ? If so then you are being offered about half the going rate.

If you are not qualified then I would say what they have offered is a fair salary for krakow. You will live ok but not luxury?

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

Disagree pip, this looks like bog standard shared service centre work, bookkeeping and accounts preparation. 5000 net is about 7500 gross and that is not a bad salary for such work by polish standards. If the salaries get any higher than that then these companies will probably be moving their shared service centres to romania, turkey or the next place.

Law / Can I rent a house as an office in Poland? [9]

I think you are mixing up the requirement for a business to have an address, with the need for director to have a residence permit which is not the case.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

If you want some honest advice

- you speak Arabic but your English is quite weak compared to local graduates which will be an issue for your employer
- you are not qualified and after 7 years of accounting you should know that is what is required to earn good money
- if you turned up to get a job from me I would compare your demands with the combined cost of a polish bookkeeper and an Arabic school new graduate who could translate for them , and I reckon that would come in less than 7000 zloty.

But show some gumption, ask your employers for what you think will support your lifestyle and wait for them to say yes or no.

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

In which case they are misguided to pay the current bubble prices. You could comfortably rent a place for 25 years for the same amount of money as is being asked in some towns.

Mind you big falls in prices in January in some towns, Wroclaw and lodz especially. Plenty of sources. Reas , oferty.pl,

The 44 percent falls noted in that article are possible as it was referring to euro amounts in the full report. Add a 20 percent zloty fall to a 20 percent currency effect.

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

So if we use stats then we are akin to greek bureaucrats if we don't use them we are asked for a source. Sounds like you are the one that is difficult to educate.

As for the argument about what would you have after 25 years its not as simple

- you would save repair costs and time and hassle
- you would have much more flexibility during that 25 year period if you wanted to move
- some of the proerty sold at the moment is so shoddy I would be amazed if it's here in 25 years and will certainly look very distressed.

- you could have invested your surplus cash in something else in the meantime.

Plenty of countries have that occupancy model including germany and holland and they are not noticeably poorer.

Re the Warsaw prices, if you bother to read the full article you would see that each Market is referred to in terms of fall from peak, I have no idea what the currency movement was from Warsaw peak but it could obviously be different from that in Poznan.

But in zloty terms some markets are already showing 30 percent falls from peak - e.g. Lodz

History / Wrocław's Train Station: Not A Happy Place. [39]

I went a couple of weeks ago and was appalled. Yes they are renovating but there were no signs, no lifts working, pools of **** in the corridor, no clear indication of exit and taxi rank. All things that could be fixed easily.

Mind you Warsaw seems to have had broken escalators for almost a year - what is so difficult about turning these on ?

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

Sorry , I mixed up lodz and Wroclaw. Lodz showing a 19 percent fall from peak, Wroclaw a 32 percent fall from peak. The source is REAS, one of the more respected consultancies on the Market.

The basis is price per sqm of developers standard without garage on new properties. I.e it is apples for apples. However they also say that there is almost two years worth of housing stock on the Market, meaning that some of the properties are the same ones showing falling prices.

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

Krakman would you make that choice if you were on a local wage ? 600 quid per month in your pocket in krakow ? Just the capital portion alone would absorb almost 15 year of your entire income.

What relevance does Britain in 1990 have to poland in 2012 ? I also made good money on a place in the 90s but it was a totally different set of circumstances with a couple of important government kick starts like flogging off council houses and big improvement grants. I would also say the behaviour of the british consumers in withdrawing paper money equity to pay for plasma screens and trips to Florida is a disastrous legacy of that book.

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

I don't remember agreeing to that source - thought it was oferty.pl. Bit I'm too pissed to look for the post.

Anyway, yes you are ahead at the moment.

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

Use you are quite right sir. But its early doors.

Law / British managers superior to Polish [52]

Let's wait until it's over before casting judgement. Ithink the matches themselves will go ok and the visiting fans will have a good time. But I think transport and accommodation will be pretty dodgy. There is just too much to achieve in 3 months

Work / Minimum basic salary in Poland [96]

There are fairly reliable statistics on the grey economy in poland - world bank estimates 29 percent of GDP, a recent AT Kearney study estimates 26 percent.

However grey economy is more in cities than in rural areas - concentrated in building trades, hospitality trade.

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

The year on year rise was 4,5% and that is the relevant figure.

The 8% is a month on month rise compared to November - of course its higher every year as people get their christmas bonus.

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

It's not based on asking prices. The asterisk only applies to brazil.

Knight Frank are a very respected source and other consultancies like REAS are showing similar figures

Genealogy / Looking for Graiper family [8]

There is also opole lubelskie which would have been in Russia at the time and may fit in with the Lublin grajpers. It's a town of about 9000 people

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]

Pip of that were the case then why is the average salary for Warsaw 5500 gross ?

There are probably less than 200.000 people in the whole of Poland earning more than 10k a month.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]


Of course it is an average but the median would of course be even lower.

What is the most reliable source - the Polish statistics office or your cousin in Gdansk ?

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


Yes and we are still waiting for your definition.

This is a bubble and its popping rapidly.

Jan and Feb price data can be found e.g. on Oferty.net, falls of circa 6-8% per sqm in most towns.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]


I think we probably move in similar circles actually, although I'm maybe less fixated about school fees and what kind of car I drive.

In Wilanow there are 20.000 people and in Konstancin 16.000. The whole population of Warsaw is 1,7m so those rich people in whose circles you move actually make up 2% of the population. By contrast there are more than 100.000 people in each of Wola, Targowek, Ochota and you may have noticed they mostly live in commie blocks, shop at Biedronka and go to work by tram not by 4x4.

The 5.500 average is a correct figure.

I'm not surprized carpenters make decent money, its quite a skilled job, he can take on as much work as he can handle and it cant be outsourced to China.

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


Yes, the wikipedia definition is posted on here and would support the fact that there is a bubble.

Work / Salary expectations in Poland [373]


How about Erbud, Leopard, Orco (in bankruptcy protection in France) ?

There are at least 3 other major cases pending.

Why would the government have worked on that developer law if there was not an issue ?

Law / clothing brand troll and tatuum in poland? [10]

None - they were rebranded several years ago after a few years or making losses. Now are called Top Secret and Co or something like that.

Law / clothing brand troll and tatuum in poland? [10]

If you check their website then it says they are now trading as top secret and friends. There is one franchise store left.

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

I don't think the opinion of real estate people is worthless and have never said that. More that it should be viewed with caution. Regarding your keynote speaker - he is hardly going to stand up at a real estate conference and say the market is way too high and its time to sell.

The difference to a doctor is that he has nothing to gain by overhyping your condition (at least in the public sector !) and also that to be a doctor you need to be qualified and understand the techical aspects of your job. I am surprized by the amount of real estate people in Poland that dont understand basic valuation concepts - discounted cash flows, yields, vacancy rates, case-schiller measurements etc.

What is your evidence that the commercial sector is getting better ? Totally at odds with my own understanding

warehouse/industrial (where I have most experience) - rents, occupancy and purchase costs are all going down.
retail (where I have quite a lot of experience) - rents going down sharply everywhere except Warsaw, vacancy going up sharply and it appears a huge number of white elephant shopping centres being built in the provinces.

office - I dont know much about that but I would be surprized if there was much happening apart from central warsaw.

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


OK so I will answer your question. Increases in Polish house prices far exceeded either economic growth, inflation or wage growth in the period 2004-2008. Therefore the affordability of property was reduced drastically, therefore less people will be able to get finance for that.

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

er...because whatever the economic climate there will always be some people that must move, normally for one of 6 reasons - new jobs, marriage, more kids, kids leaving home, divorce, retirement.

I appreciate that reasoned debate doesn't seem to be your strong suit but surely the measure to look at is how many units. All data shows that there are far lower transaction numbers than in previous years.

In addition the time spent on average to shift each unit is increasing quite drastically with some towns like Lodz and Wroclaw showing almost 2 years worth of housing stock on the market.

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

You don't need to put your thousands in inverted comments. The numbers of unsold apartments has already been shown.

Yes there are luxury properties there but also many standard developments, especially in the larger provincial towns.

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

Well like most sensible investors I'm about 30 percent each in cash, stocks and property and about 10 percent in other things.

If any of the other categories decreased by 35 percent I would consider that very drastic.

One sure sign of a bubble is people saying this time the normal rules don't apply. Poland cannot escape basic economics.

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

As to whether 4800 is a crash price is open to debate, but it would certainly be the end of the boom and would mean we were more or less back to inflation adjusted pre 2004 figures.

As an example I bought my first property in Poland in 2001 for 3000 per sqm which was going rate at the time as I looked at about 7 or 8 places. I bought without credit and at the time I thought it was a reasonable price and in cash flow terms it has just finished paying off over an 11 year term (would have been a bit quicker if it wasnt for a few bad tenants).

Compound inflation at that time has been 42% - so essentially house prices will have increased 14% in real terms. Not a bad return and certainly better than a lot of my stocks over the same grim period, but not an earth shattering piece of business, especially in an emerging market.