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Big Deal

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

Since I have bought my car, going to the gas station from time to time to do a fill-up or to just wash the car became a habit and a part of my normal life. I chose to go to the same gas station all the time, because it is close and they have a really good tunnel-carwash: OMV.
Recently the company has launched a campaign of “Complete your Kappa bags collection”, which means collecting points at every purchase of at least 30 RON and use those points to acquire travel bags. You can find out more about the campaign here.

OMV Kappa

Personally I never knew Kappa was famous of making travel bags. Anyway, because of the relatively high “original” price of the bags I was hoping that they were of good quality. Basically the original price of a set of 2 trolleys (as it said on the brochure) was of 899 lei, but with 20 points collected, one could buy them for “just” 319 lei. Pretty neat. I do not really need travel bags now, but a set of good bags never hurts especially for this low price…

Unfortunately I never really had the chance to see them, because they were always out of stock. Last week, I managed to gather my 20 points, so I decided to ask for the bags. Luckily the gas station had a set right then on display (nobody bought it, yet), so I checked them out. Well, they are not bad quality, but… I really hoped for something better. I liked the fact that the wheels were not “sticking out” and the quality of the materials seemed good. One thing that I really-really hate, however, is that the sliding handle is not fixed tight enough and the whole thing wobbles around if pulled out. Even my current travel bag (“L. Lambertazzi”), which was a bit cheaper than the Kappa bags can do this part better. To my surprise they did not let me see the smaller bag of the two. It was inside the big one and they told me that the packaging cannot be undone… 😕 ….

I have searched the internet for Kappa bags to at least compare the prices, but nothing. I have only found one forum thread which described these exact bags from the OMV campaign. To my surprise everyone said that the bags are OK. Come on: nothing is special about them… I have actually seen a few trolleys which were better in Carrefour (for around 150-200 lei). I have also checked out some local Samsonite stores: yes, those really are high quality bags for 800 lei.

All in all I am losing my will of buying the bags. They simply are not worth the money. Maybe if you really need them, then yes, buy them. Other than that: nothing special, just attracting clients.

—==[#9]==—

Posted in People&Society, Romania | Comments Off on Big Deal

The First House

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

That is the translation of the current crediting program financed by our government and executed by a few selected banks in our country. Since I got fired up by the offer I saw (see previous post), I did a research on the offers the banks had. The offers have some difference, so I did a preliminary research on them using only data published on their websites. I have selected three banks:

I took as target credit the value of the flat I liked (without the garage): €42.000, and a crediting period of 240 months (20 years).
Banner BT
The first bank I examined, was BT, the preferred bank, because it is the regions bank and because I like them in general 🙂 . They offer only one, basic crediting mechanism, with a flat paying rate of €257.91/month. This value is however composed of the credit+interest which varies along the 240 months:

Month # Rate Interest Fees Total
Month 001 €99.87 €158.04 0 €257.91
Month 240 €256.89 €1.02 0 €257.91

Although I have written 0 to the Charges section, there are occasional charges to be payed at certain periods. These are handling fees by the bank, which occur only occasionally.

There are also initial payments that have to be done when applying for the credit. According to the bank’s website, these are the numbers:

Advance €2100 5% of the credit
Credit fee 0 it says “gratuit”
Guarantee €472.92 3 rates of the interest
Evaluation 0 Done by BT evaluator
Total €2572.92 – estimation

Banner BRD
Next I examined BRD. This bank seems to offer two methods of paying the rates: it offers an almost flat payment rate with the following characteristics:

Month # Rate Interest Fees Total
Month 001 €119.36 €105.24 €39.9 €262.49
Month 240 €224 €0.59 €0.22 €224.82

and another type, the decreasing payment rate, with the following characteristics:

Month # Rate Interest Fees Total
Month 001 €166.25 €158.04 €39.9 €311.39
Month 240 €166.25 €0.44 €0.17 €166.85

The advantage of this second type of payment rate is of course the fact, that the rates are actually being payed at the flat rate… in other words this is the actual flat rate payment. It could represent a huge advantage when trying to pay the rest of the credit instantly in the future.

Here is the list of down-payments that have to be done when applying for the credit:

Advance €2100 5% of the credit
Credit fee 0 it says “gratuit”
Guarantee €314.77 3 rates of the interest
Evaluation €100 Approximation. By preferred evaluator.
Total €2514.77 – estimation

Banner BCR
Unfortunately BCR does not offer any calculator to calculate the rates for this type of credit. For this reason I do not know what the rates are. I was able to gather some information about the down-payments:

Advance €2100 5% of the credit
Credit fee €79.8 0.2%
Guarantee €400 Approximation. 3 rates.
Evaluation €83 300RON + Taxes
Total €2661 – very rough estimation

The research shows, that in order to have this type of credit the down-payment is really low. However it must be taken into consideration, that additional charges may be asked by the real-estate agency (see my previous post) and take into account that you might need some money for furniture also. The rates themselves are OK, but can be changed and I think they will be changed during the crediting period. For this reason I like the 2nd offer of BRD, where you actually pay linearly the credit, so after 10 years, there will be actually 50% payed of the credit and the rest is easier to be payed…

—==[#4]==—

Posted in Finance, Romania | 3 Comments »

Attracting Clients

Friday, January 29th, 2010

I was surfing on the internet and just out of curiosity I have entered a site with real-estate businesses. There have been a few interesting offers, but they all had a general flaw, which I personally hate about the new flats that are being built in Cluj: almost none of the flats have underground parking. A few levels into the ground would really not hurt, if nothing else, it would add extra stability… but no… not in Cluj…
Home
As I was surfing among the offers I have stumbled upon one which said it had underground parking… wow… I was amazed, could this be possible? I checked the pictures and the floor-plan: quite good. It was a one-room apartment for €38.500 in a very good area (Zorilor) and the ad said that a garage comes with it also. I did a quick calculation and I realized that with the new house-loan program that the country has (“prima casa”), the monthly rates would be a bit more than the rent I am paying right now. I decided to take a look the next day.

The second day I called the real-estate agency. My first question was if the garage was really in the price of the apartment: this is where the first surprise hit me… the answer was NO, an extra €6.000 is charged for that. Well, I thought no problem, maybe I’ll pay the extra. I decided to arrange a meeting to see the apartment. When I got to the agency I had to sign a paper which said, that I would have to pay the agency an additional 2% of the flat price if a deal would be made… interesting… another €800 or so… On the road we picked up another agent who was supposed to show us around. In the car the two agents immediately started to talk about how well business went and how few apartments were left for sale… yeah right I thought (Nice move however from the agents 😉 ).

We got to the flats and had a look at the apartments: there have been various arrangements on different levels, but I was told, that there were only 5 flats left… (nice move again…). The apartments had a pretty decent quality, however they were not really impressing. The isolation was however really good: no heating and in the -10 degrees, which was outside, nothing could be felt in the apartments… The down side was, that the apartment which had the price tag from the ad was actually quite small, on the top floor and nothing like the one described in the ad. The apartment described in the ad was actually €42.000…

I asked the agent to have a look at the garage also: nice, but dusty and seemed like a construction site (although it was ready for more than a year). The really big problem which appeared however, was the fact that I could only pay for the garage with cash down:€6.500 for one spot in the underground parking area, or maybe if I have cash at the spot when paying, I could get it for less:€5.500…
OK, I said… I’ll call you tomorrow with my decision…

I was really determined to go on with the arrangement, but all day long something was bugging me and made me uncomfortable… something was not right. I stepped back and analyzed again the problem: now it did not seam like it was a good idea anymore: the full price got up to €49.300 and I had to pay around €8.000 as an advance… I said NO: this would eat up all my salary and practically I could not save up anything for 30 years… not nice…

In general it is quite easy to get into the fever of buying something and agents are on a hunt for that. They almost had me, too. I think when buying something this big, it is wise to step back and re-analyze everything with a clear mind: just imagine that you do not want to buy it and you hate the flat, no matter how good it is. It might seem that it is a once in a lifetime opportunity, but it isn’t: there will always be good opportunities and flats will only get better and better in time. Who knows, maybe one day there will be also in Cluj flats with proper underground parking…

—==[#3]==—

Posted in Cluj, People&Society, Romania | Comments Off on Attracting Clients

Movie-day

Monday, December 21st, 2009

Today we decided to go see a movie. Actually it was a good opportunity to check out the second multiplex in Cluj. I have visited the first one, Cinema City (located in Iulius Mall) last year and it was quite good. I was really curious how Odeon Cineplex (located in the other mall: Polus Center) would feel like. I do not have much experience with multiplex cinemas, but I have visited two in Italy and I must say, these seem to be much better (both). Maybe because they are newer they seem much nicer 🙂 .

We have chosen the movie: Avatar, because of the huge publicity that has been going along about this movie. We watched it in 3D which gave quite a good boost to the effects. One thing to note: we had to sit in the front row, because there were no other seats available. I have never sat in the front row for 3D movies so I did not know what to expect. The picture seemed a bit disproportionate from there but the action was quite lively. I can honestly say nothing was lost from the feeling. The only bad thing was my aching back and neck at the end of the movie. Sitting in the front row involves quite a lot of head movement, so I guess that was the reason 😛 .

About the movie: fun to watch. It has not too much moral stuff to offer, but again I did not go to see a sci-fi movie for that. A sci-fi/animation should be fun, full of action and should amaze the audience with the scene and sounds. Avatar did just that: the scenes and sounds were quite remarkable. Together with the 3D effect it was quite a show. It was worth the money spent on it. I would give I think 8/10 for it.

Posted in Movies, Romania | 6 Comments »

Horrid houses

Monday, June 1st, 2009

The economical crisis is upon us. We all felt it and feel it continuously. In Romania, Cluj-Napoca to be more exact, people find more and more interesting things to do in this situation. There is a local newspaper, Clujeanul.ro which tells all sorts of stories from really stupid ones to some (a few) interesting ones. Sometimes I really do not know why I bother reading it… I guess because of those very few cases when it tells important news also, I just give it a glimpse now and then.

The other day I have discovered, that there is a new article-series going on, written by a local reporter (I guess he is a reporter… I am not sure). The series is called “insectarul arhitecturii clujene” (roughly translated the “bug-tracker of the architecture of Cluj-Napoca“). Since the articles are in Romanian, a brief description is I think required for anyone who does not understand the language (not sure if there are any):
The guy goes around in the city and takes photographs of houses he doesn’t like and writes long articles describing their “disturbing architecture”. He calls these buildings the terror of Cluj and keeps on yanking around why they have a bad design and all…

Click here to see the pictures of the houses he criticizes. Some have too many pillars, some too many spikes in their fences and some are just utterly ugly…

Now I may have a very bad taste in design, but I personally do not find these houses that disturbing. Surely they are not the best ones I have seen, but I do not feel that they are so bad… 😕 … I sometimes visit freshome.com to see interesting design ideas… well now, those are REALLY out of the ordinary and funky… and what do you know: people do not complain about it. Civilized people seem to recognize the art in something different, something out of the ordinary… Just to make things clear some of the editors of freshome are also Romanian so thankfully there is hope for us 🙂 .

I think this is the most important problem of some citizens in our country: they simply can not accept that not everything is the way YOU like it. I feel that these people tend to hold back any type of development in a country: after all, development means changing and change means difference. Maybe I am wrong and the guy is right… but then PLEASE: tell us how a house should look like? What are we ALLOWED and what are we not to do with our houses? I personally have not found anything about this issue and to tell the truth, I do not think that the guy really knows…

To the owners of those “horrid” houses: yes, the houses are not masterpieces, but be proud, YOU have achieved something (I do not care how), the reporter never did (and judging by his attitude he never will).

So: my question in the end is are the houses really that horrid? (Please respond, I am really curious 🙂 ).

Posted in People&Society, Romania | Comments Off on Horrid houses

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