Post: #1

Has anyone had experience buying property in Poland, Lithuania, or other EE countries for renting? Some say there is a crisis there now and the exchange rate is good.

I wonder if there is some sort of rvf premier service, airbnbs managed by forum members, no trouble with doormen, long stays possible, near critical nightlife/daygame venues...because there should be.

Post: #2

I'm looking at places here in Poland. It's cheap as fuck.

It doesn't matter if there is a crisis. The sticky fingered real estate workers will try to rape you.

The first problem is finding the right kind of place and not overpaying.
The second problem is getting in before some guy buys it and does it up with shitty Ikea floors / walls then tries to sell it for 6 times the price.

I am mainly looking for luxury apartments because that's only going to costs me $2-300,000. Where back home I wouldn't even get 4 walls for that.

The first place I looked at buying. It was just a space in the clouds because the building wasn't finished. They showed me some animations and pictures and plans. It was on the 13th floor, good location in the center, overlooking the river. It was 92 square meters, but it had a 90 square meter green terrace. Looked sexy. Was only $200,000. 600,000PLN
Went to go for it but some guy bought it just before me (and three others). Now I know that he is going to do it up in the cheapest way possible and try to sell it for 2 million Zloty. And it will look like shit.

After that I looked at some ones in the nicest neighborhood. Brand new building where they obviously tried to cram as many apartments in there as possible. They were trying to charge 600,000PLN for a 60 square meter apartment.... Fuck that.

The next place I looked at was fucking great. Big building with only 3 apartments. One on top of the other. All were about 140 square meters, overlooking the park. I wanted the top one, but that was sold. So the middle one was the next best. But they were trying to charge something like 6,500PLN per square meter. (Warsaw prices).
Anyway I didnt have the 1.2m Zloty. So I had to let that one go.

Post: #3

Since some EE places don't have trust, like using checks etc, this is one story I heard where people managed to buy a flat for cash without walking around with 50K USD or whatever.

They buyer and the seller, having alerted the bank before hand, sign the contracts in the bank, where the buyer withdraws the cash from his account ( of course you have to have them ready for that.)

They seller then counts the cash (examining for counterfeits of course) and walks over the the teller and deposits the money into HIS account.

So the whole thing was done with guards present, no cash leaves the bank and is on the streets vulnerable to theft.

Post: #4

I lived out there for a while and looked into it, but the return on investment (ROI) wasn't there. I made a few offers, but the pricing was never attractive enough to justify the investment.

Here's a quick tip to figure out whether it's worthwhile: divide the price by 200 to get the monthly rent needed for the minimum acceptable return. If market rents are higher, it makes sense to buy. If market rents are lower, it doesn't. Similarly, if you want to buy the flat you're living in, multiply your rent by 200 to get the maximum price you should pay.

So if spalex is buying a flat for $300k, he needs to rent it out for at least $1,500 per month or there's not enough ROI. Similarly, if you pay $500 rent your flat shouldn't cost more than $100,000.

In my experience the prices in EE have been too high and the rents too low to get an attractive ROI.

However, if you've got excess cash or are looking for an excuse to travel regularly to EE or want to hedge against devaluation, etc., then you might not worry about overpaying.

Post: #5

spalex,

Not trying to steal your secrets but you can invest 600k plus how much for upgrades and you can sell for 2M? That is quite a margin.