Moved out of the rented flat on Thursday (could not wait under the last
day of my tenure since I had to take a business to trip to Szczecin,
reluctantly). To be fair with the landlord, I had informed her I would move out
shortly after buying the flat and despite the delay with the remont (though
recent impressive progress of works is beyond my expectations, to which I shall
dedicate a post next Sunday) I have kept the promise (had no choice since I had
found another tenant to make up for the inconvenience I had caused) and moved
to my parents’ house for some two months.
If I were to draw up a list advantages my place of residence over the
past four months, it would contain three: good transport link with the city
centre (35 minutes door-do-door journey to the office was the shortest daily
commute in my life), functionality of the very dwelling and price-to-quality
trade-off.
Besides, as the landlord came to take over the flat and return the cash
bail to me, she confessed she had detested the place and could not have waited
to move out of there. The place is certainly depressing. Ursynów on a grey
late-November afternoon would sooner lift my spirit than Wrzeciono on a
late-spring sunny morning. After residing there for a while I am glad I finally
have not purchased a flat in Bielany and opted for Ursynów. At least the
dwelling I have bought gives off loads of positive energy and I feel is a place
I can call home. In the rented flat in Wrzeciono I felt like in a hotel
(probably circumstances which had thrown me there were to blame as well);
something was amiss about the place, some barrier I was unable to overcome.
After settling down (the phrasal verb acutally misused) in Wrzeciono I was quite curious to learn more about
the history of the district. Back in the 1960 the former fields of Młociny
airport were adapted to build a huge estate of tower blocks to workers of the
nearby ironworks, Huta Warszawa. The new inhabitants hailed from provincial
Poland and resettlement to a dwelling with electricity, running water, gas oven
and central heating was an enormous leap forward in terms of standard of
living, outshining all drawbacks of flats in Wrzeciono, especially their size
(studios of 18 or 24 sqm, one-bedrooms of 37 sqm or two-bedrooms of 49 sqm),
lack of balconies, crampy kitchens located in excesses next to front doors.
In 1990s after Huta Warszawa went bust, the place became a hotbed of
pathologies and criminality where a decent man would not turn up except for
broad daylight. In 2000 the neighbourhood began to get civilised.
Representatives of the vilest pathology have either ended up behind bars, boozed
themselves to death or died down, several new blocks of flats were built, new
residents mixed up with older ones. The city and district authorities have also
made a tremendous effort to improve safety in the area and revitalise the grey,
old blocks. Still Wrzeciono has the notorious zone of ul. Dorycka (though the
area looks out better and better year by year) where venturing even in broad
daylight is not a pleasure, but I generally felt safe, even when returning to
the dwelling late in the evening or at night.
Maybe living under one roof with my parents to which I have grown
disaccustomed is not a dreamt-up scenario, but somewhat preferable to living in
the depressing Wrzeciono. Oddly enough, property prices do not reflect general
ugliness of the area. Proximity to the underground stations (my walk to Metro
Wawrzyszew each morning took me six minutes) and popularity of the relatively
cheap flats among tenants have driven flat prices up. Six years ago, when
property market hit its 10-year trough, one could easily find a bargain by
buying a (run-down) flat for less than PLN 6,000 per sqm. Today a flat in need
of comprehensive refurbishment would trade for PLN 2,000 more per sqm, while
thoroughly renovated flats have asking prices nearing five digits per sqm.
Decently fit-out studios (offering monthly after tax income of ca. PLN 1,000 –
1,200) are priced between PLN 200,000 and 250,000 which translate into
net-of-tax (but pre-CAPEX) yield of more than 5%, which somewhat justifies the
absurdly high prices.
And to conclude, I believe interest rates should have been jacked up long ago while the benchmark rate ought to run two percentage points above
inflation, i.e. at around 4.00% currently.
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