Real estate, Poland, today

My bet on an asset class that's set to appreciate quickly is Polish real estate. Which is a reason why I'm on the hunt for a działka in South Mazovia.

First - find your działka. Ideally one with a small house on it, one which is inhabitable all year round (brick-built), with electricity and water as a minimum, on a well-sized plot of land (but not too big, as maintenance costs will be high). Most importantly - the surroundings must fit your aesthetic.

Know where it is you want to buy. Visit the area in summer, autumn, winter and spring. Get to know it street by street. And follow the market. I've been looking for three years for a nice plot with investment potential, in a good location, still hunting.

A good place to start is Domiporta.pl, which has a useful map feature, which allows you to focus your search on the area of your choice.

But - it is important to understand how estate agents work in Poland. In the UK, there's such as thing as the law of agency, which essentially stipulates that an agent can only work on the behalf of one party. In Poland, estate agents believe it is their right to extract a fee from both buy and seller (the more advanced ones are now advertising that they don't take a fee from the buyer).

The fact that estate agents can take fees from buyer and seller means that when they suggest something to you, you don't know whether that suggestion is in your best interest - or the best interest of the seller. In the UK, you know - and that helps you make an informed decision.

And in the UK, estate agents tend to work on an exclusivity basis - the seller posts the property with one estate agent who does everything possible to sell it. Here in Poland, the seller will post the property with half a dozen estate agents. This leads both buyer and seller to try to bypass all agents.

The internet was just made to disintermediate agents (of all sorts - travel, commercial etc). Buyer contacts seller directly. Why the middleman? Well, here we are well into the internet's third decade and estate agents are still around - by adding value to the transaction. This I can see in the case of commercial property, but in residential... Unless Polish estate agents up their game, they will become mired, as a profession, in low volumes of low value deals.

Yesterday, I chanced upon a nice prospective purchase, south of Czachówek, close to the Warsaw-Radom railway line. I had set off to look at some land, but a little further up the same road I saw a nice plot in a nice area with a nice little house on it - and a note stuck to the gate saying it was for sale, with a mobile telephone number.

I called. Yes, the house is for sale, and the price is very attractive. We arranged for a viewing next week. Yes, this house is advertised with an estate agent. Only I have not been through the agent, nor did I find it on the agent's website or any multi-listing system. I made direct contact with the seller having been to place myself. I have no obligation to pay any agent anything should this transaction go ahead.

Does the seller have an obligation to pay the estate agent anything in this case?

Estate agents used to go out of their way to disguise the location of a property so that prospective buyers wouldn't be able to find it without calling the agent. The agent would insist on signing a preliminary agreement with the prospective buyer before saying where the property actually was. Today, it's much easier to track it down (as I did yesterday, finding a działka in Ustanówek using Google Earth satellite imagery - across the straight grass track from a house with a red tiled roof and square courtyard). And many real estate portals, such as Domiporta.pl or Otodom.pl, have a map function allowing buyers to see where the property actually is.

Anyway, about the area. I'd been looking locally, then further south, around Czachówek and more recently Ustanówek. I know these areas very well indeed. Yesterday, I took the train a bit further south, to Chynów. This is now outside the Warsaw agglomeration. If you take the DK50 as Warsaw's de facto southern ring-road, this is just outside it. Apple orchards make up the most of the landscape, which is just slightly undulating. And it's 28 minutes by train from W-wa Jeziorki. Two bits of roadwork will make the area more accessible - from the west, the S7 extension from Grójec to Okęcie, and from the east, the Góra Kalwaria bypass (linking the S79 and DK50). The Warsaw-Radom railway modernisation has got as far as Czachówek; once that gets to Chynów journey-times to town will shrink further.

Property prices, which have stayed flat over the past decade, will pick up as Poland's economy gets into full swing (despite, not because of Mr Kaczyński's wilder ideas). GDP and wage growth are both outstripping inflation, employees are harder to recruit and retain. So there will be more disposable income and younger, wealthier Poles will be looking to buy property, while older ones will be starting the move seen in the UK generations ago - leaving the cities to retire to the agreeable countryside.

All I've got to do is to find the right place at the right price - but apart from anything else, it has to click with my aesthetic tastes. The Chinese notion of feng shui is something I can appreciate - the lie of the land, the atmosphere of the surrounding woods and roads have to be right.

So - a brief tour. Below: Chynów station, with its island platform. The line from Czachówek to Radom is being modernised (see new rails on the 'up' line, and in the distance on the right, tidy piles of new concrete sleepers). The new 'down' platform will be staggered so as to be 300m closer to the działka in which I'm interested, and journey times to town will be cut.

Plots similar to this one (5,500m2 for £45,000 or 216,000zł, with access to electricity, running water, sewerage and planning permission to build a house) can be found around Chynów.

Below: gently undulating agricultural land, many fruit farms around.

Below: Most important - asphalt to the station and street lighting.

Far enough from Warsaw to be in genuine countryside rather than exurban sprawl, yet close enough to get to the city centre in under an hour by train. I can see good value here.

And just across the road - I espy this. A narrow plot of land, a house on it. Looks interesting! A phone number. I call. Price is right - I arrange a viewing for the next weekend

UPDATE: NOVEMBER 2017. Three weeks and two visits later, it's mine. I sign the papers at a notary's office in Wierzbno, make the bank transfer. Keys are handed over - it's as good as mine. Just need to wait for the transfer of the title deeds in the land and mortgage register.

UPDATE: 8 FEBRUARY 2018. Am now officially the owner of the house and land, Jakubowizna 57.

This time two years ago:
Ogórek by the Palace of Culture

This time six years ago:
Autumnal dusk, Jeziorki

This time tenyears ago:
Autumn sun going out