With one a half months notice, I informed my landlady that I would be moving out of my room- plenty of notice and plenty of time to find somewhere new to live. Or so I thought. But then this being Poland, of course this could no way be as easy or as straight forward as I initially anticipated- even with all indicators pointing to the contrary. Really, I'm like a goldfish with a three second memory. As I was to discover, once again it's not what you know but who you know in Poland that counts.
Presented by Mags Korczak.
Like most flat hunters, the first thing I did was to browse the internet and to buy a couple of classified newspapers. I circled the apartments within the right locale, price and size bracket. However, with one a half months to go everything I was looking at was listed as being available "from now". "Well goodness", I thought, "I'm not really in the position to move now and if I were to find a place I'd like I'd have to pay twice- once for the room I'm already living in and then again for the new place. Nooo, best to leave things for a while." And that's what I did; obviously only to find that in the week approaching the end of my current tenancy that, actually, there really wasn't much going. Cue impending heart failure.
Having enlisted help to phone some numbers featured online and in these classified papers, I was to discover that the majority of advertisers were in fact rental agents; rental agents whose sole function, after handing them a 250 zl fee (around 55 euros) they kindly give you access to a list of telephone numbers for people who have accommodation available but who you have to phone yourself. No legwork on their part. You try to ask details about the flat but first you must hand them that fee before any information is imparted and if you persist just a little bit with whether there is so much as an indoor toilet, they put the phone down on you. Best stay away from that. Or there were those places to rent available from now that were so ridiculously small that you could fit more into a shoebox. Not to mention the ridiculous rent the landlady was trying to charge for the pleasure of deluxe minimalism. I was desperate but on the whole not stupid.
Even though there seems to be a plethora of new developments cropping up left, right and centre, it is surprising just how difficult it is to find somewhere to live in Poland's capital. One acquaintance has just spent two months commuting 100km each way to Warsaw from his parent's house, after he was unable rent anyway when his last flat-share expired. The luckiest and wealthiest people in Warsaw, in my opinion, are those people of my generation who have inherited inner city property from their grandparents and parents, who used their "right to buy" on their former state owned property in the 1990s at a time when Warsaw was still merely a residential rather than a business centre. Most people who originate from Warsaw do not rent because they already have somewhere to live passed down from family members who have since moved to larger family dwellings. The beginning of 2009 saw prices in the city at around 1800 zl (405 euros) a month for a 25m2 flat, which is why it is was announced that the cost of living and everyday items in Warsaw has risen to the extent that is now more expensive than neighbouring capital Berlin, although average income does not compare so favourably to that in Germany.
One of the major problems with the letting market in Poland, I have been told, is the lack of security for the property owner with tenants holding the majority of rights. For example, if you officially register yourself to a particular address (a relic of communism where citizens were obliged to state where they lived for labour purposes) then it is difficult to remove that tenant from that address even if they unduly refuse to pay rent. Further, it is forbidden by law to evict a single woman who falls pregnant. Thus, proprietors are reluctant to rent out what empty property they have for fear of reprisal. A few years ago my cousins discovered these problems when their tenants refused to pay rent for over a year. The police refused to intervene and so in the end they had to resort to actually paying the tenants to leave.
Doing a generalised survey-type sweep of some former English students of mine, I asked how they came to find accommodation in Warsaw, knowing that they originated from elsewhere in the country. Practically all informed me that they had a family member or friend from their village/school/university who had hooked them up with a place here before their arrival. Well, that's just brilliant, I have none of those. So what did I do? I panicked. And then I wrote a begging email to everyone I have on my social networking site with a Polish sounding surname who may have some leads. This failed miserably because none of them live in Warsaw or had any leads here. But my soul Polish friend in this city very kindly offered up her sofa to me for a few days. Within a few days, however, I was lucky enough to find a flat right in the centre from an advert actually posted by the landlady herself and moved in the day after I viewed it.
Recently the conditions for being granted mortgages have become tougher and the rental market likely to become even more of a challenge. Like most things in Poland, finding somewhere to live is best achieved on the "grapevine"- that is, once you start thinking about thinking about doing something (in this case finding a new place to live) you spread the word rapidly to absolutely everyone you know even if you're not intending to actually really start thinking about moving somewhere for the next six months or so. Then you have to let all those people you have mentioned this intention to, know to spread the word amongst their nearest and dearest and so on and so forth until eventually, somewhere down this grapevine, you might get a response. If not be prepared to commute from Berlin.