Relocate in old age, where to?

[krimster2]

Alex330,
   if I recall,  Frantsuzky bulvar had a lot of art studios, etc there, are you and your wife into the arts?  I know some about Odessa, I visited a lot, never lived there but my paternal grandfather was born there, really loved the place, I can see the attraction

[krimster2]

LivefromUkraine,
totally understand what you're saying, and it's basically the reason why I left, I'm glad I had the experience to live there, even more glad that I left!!!!

[alex330]

   if I recall,  Frantsuzky bulvar had a lot of art studios, etc there, are you and your wife into the arts?  I know some about Odessa, I visited a lot, never lived there but my paternal grandfather was born there, really loved the place, I can see the attraction

Hmm, I do not recall any art studios when I was there. We enjoy art, but are not afficionadios. We did just go to Art Basel here in Miami. Strongly recommend doing that if anyone loves art. Or hot women actually.

I loved the tree lined cobblestone road and all the old dachas and sanatoriums on French Blvd from the Soviet days.

I also enjoyed all the cafe's in Odessa, and the smaller feel it has for the size city it is. Big village as they affectionately say. Wife is from there and has all her friends and family, so that kinda seals the deal should we ever move over.

[krimster2]

Alex330,
   depending on your preferences, instead of a 2 bedroom apartment you can go outside the city to the surrounding areas, and buy a dacha, tear it down and do what I did and build a house and garage but this is a huge amount of work, apartments are "hit-or-miss" in Ukraine, neighbors can be a HUGE problem, and behavior that would never be tolerated in a US apartment building would be the norm there, drunken parties, garbage, etc.  also be aware that an apartment's price can depend on what floor it's on, basement and first floor have a lower price, 2nd floor is more desirable and so will cost more, and higher floors will be cheaper, but you have to do more walking,this is because of the crime issue, get used to bars on the windows and a bank vault door, you can usually buy a garage for $3000-$4000, and probably be not more than a few hundred meters from your apartment (usually...), OTOH, apartments are kind of "turn-key", and easier to set-up, get used to every spring your neighbors will do their "renovatsie", so hammers banging all day long, also you can buy couches in Ukraine that open into beds so you can have visitors over from the USA without needing a guest room. one thing that would be interesting would be if you could setup something like Apple TV in Ukraine and stream HBO, etc.  I had Russian and Ukrainian cable, only English channel was BBC, helped me learn Russian, and I freakin' love Russian MTV, but longed for some American TV... one of my pictures above has a Lada 1600, I got used to it, but gave it to my sister-in-law and bought a Mitsubishi Colt, for about $20,000 brand new, driving in Ukraine requires some skill to say the least, even pedestrians seemed bent on suicide

[krimster2]

this is what a typical enclosed “balcone” looks like in Ukraine, if you have an open balcony all the local contractors will be familiar with how to enclose it.  your Ukrainian wife will use this space to dry the laundry and store kartoshkie.

however, note the bars over the windows, if there was ever a fire in your apartment building and it blocked your apartment door, you and your family are trapped!  I had an apartment full of little kids, this thought kept me up at night, so I sawed through this balcony (completely invisible from the outside!) and created an escape hatch, it was our family secret, and in the middle of the night I got everyone up and we had a fire drill, ahhh good times!

fortunately, never needed it, and burglars never found out about it!!!!

[fathertime]

however, note the bars over the windows, if there was ever a fire in your apartment building and it blocked your apartment door, you and your family are trapped!  I had an apartment full of little kids, this thought kept me up at night, so I sawed through this balcony (completely invisible from the outside!) and created an escape hatch, it was our family secret, and in the middle of the night I got everyone up and we had a fire drill, ahhh good times!

fortunately, never needed it, and burglars never found out about it!!!!

Smart, really it should be mandatory to have a way out like that.  I also used to practice a home fire route escape when my kids were young.   When I was in Colombia I sometimes stayed in places where those bars were inescapable and the walls were solid like rocks and thick.  Had there been a fire I'd have to run through it to escape.  I didn't like the feeling of being trapped, if a fire should occur.


Fathertime!   

[Sailor291]

Can any of you give some words of advice?  My wife and I are talking about spending our summers in Ukraine, Chernivtsi area, and winters back in Texas.  Good idea or bad?  Not sure my wife or I could live in Ukraine full time, she has become accustomed to life in the West, but does miss Ukraine.  I have spent considerable time there over our 16 years of marriage so not completely ignorant  as to how things are. 

[krimster2]

hey,
I think it comes down to how big of a commitment you're willing to make, YOU will get the short end of the stick like I did, but I'm sure like me, you love your wife and would do anything to make her happy like I did.  Chernivtsi has some outdoors stuff to do, so hope you like that, otherwise unless you're fluent in Ukrainian/Russian you're going to be socially isolated and bored, also here's another tidbit, when you spend a lot of time with your wife's relatives, you may find that you don't like them very much, just sayin', otoh, you could easily go to Romania/Transylvania and visit Dracula's castle(I'm jealous!)

I'd really recommend your wife's relatives renting a place for you and your wife for the summer, and give it a try this way, then either buy a small apartment, or build the big farm house like I described above, either way price will be $30,000-$50,000. I think  you can do it, especially if it's just for the summer won't be too boring for you, also a big plus is how easy it is to go from Ukraine to other parts of Europe, so after a few summers you could spend a few weeks in Chernivtsi and then take a train/plane to somewhere else a lot easier than you can from the US, this is what I did to!!

[krimster2]

oops hit 'return' to early, I also would recommend you get some kind of hobby while in Ukraine to focus your time/energy on.  I had a couple things, I had a software development co, and some real estate business and I was obsessed with ruins I lived near, Chersonese, this obsession led me to have diverse social contacts with archeologists and black market antiquity dealers.  I also had the hobby of 'bunker diving' which was finding and exploring WWII bunkers, I had a group of Russian friends that I'd do this with, in the summer I would dive in the black sea ("chorny moira") and surprised my wife with a burlap bag of scallops one time, my point is that while you're in Ukraine you better have some interests and activities and not just sit in your apartment all day, otherwise you'll be bored

[krimster2]

fathertime,
Colombia?  I'm jealous!  yeah can't be too careful about fire safety in these old apartments in countries that have never heard of a fire code

[krimster2]

hopefully the information I provided was of more value than just stating the prices,
from what I’ve seen in a lot of areas of Ukraine real estate prices aren’t too far off the mark from where they were in 2007 when I left.  My exit was timed pretty well, Ukrainian real estate had a 30% price decline in 2008-2009 due to the global financial crisis.  it started climbing back-up in 2010, but has been declining after Nov, 2013.   a friend of mine in Kyiv asked me if I was interested in an “elitny” property off the high-way from Borispol airport to Kyiv, in early 2013 this was a $1,000,000 property but today it’s $250,000, so you see, Ukraine’s real estate market is so volatile, that even prices from 2013, just 3 years ago, are no longer relevant, and are actually closer to 2007 prices, wow!!!

akmike, if you have something constructive to add, please do...

[Miquel Westano]

Smart, really it should be mandatory to have a way out like that.  I also used to practice a home fire route escape when my kids were young.   When I was in Colombia I sometimes stayed in places where those bars were inescapable and the walls were solid like rocks and thick.  Had there been a fire I'd have to run through it to escape.  I didn't like the feeling of being trapped, if a fire should occur.


Fathertime!

Yep, the solid bars and limited exits would keep me awake too.  I had a friend who put wire cages on all his windows and double keyed deadbolts on his three doors.  (front-back-garage entry) and bragged to me how it would take a thief 30 minutes to break in.  I asked him the obvious question, how long would it take your kids to break out.  I am as security conscious as the next guy, but the thought of dying in a fire trying to open my keyed dead bolt would definitely keep me up too.

[LiveFromUkraine]

however, note the bars over the windows, if there was ever a fire in your apartment building and it blocked your apartment door, you and your family are trapped!  I had an apartment full of little kids, this thought kept me up at night, so I sawed through this balcony (completely invisible from the outside!) and created an escape hatch, it was our family secret, and in the middle of the night I got everyone up and we had a fire drill, ahhh good times!

fortunately, never needed it, and burglars never found out about it!!!!

That and needing a key just to get out of the apartment.  I remember being locked in an apartment in Kiev because I misplaced the keys.  Luckily there was no fire.

[AkMike]

IF anyone wants current pricing for real estae in Ukraine have a look at   olx.ua   or dom.ria.com


 These are the two biggest sites for real estate in Ukraine. Keep in mind that the sellers are trying to get some 'blue sky' proffit so these prices are not firm for the most part.


 Do not rely on hear say pricing.

[krimster2]

Hi Miguel!

smoke detectors are good to!

another safety feature that should be universal in Ukraine is a UPS (uninterruptible power supply)  this is because in many regions of Ukraine/Russia/FSU AC power is pretty unreliable. it really sucks sitting in the dark, just ask anyone who lives in Crimea!
the ones available in Ukraine are usually small and meant to power a computer.  I wanted a larger one to power the electronic heating controllers, so I had to bring my own, I kinda over-built by using multiple batteries to give longer time, make sure you wire in parallel!

I bought an inverter in the USA, something like this one



and I hooked it up to either 2 or 4 12V batteries that I bought in Ukraine, marine batteries if available are better than auto batteries

on the output side I had a us style power strip to plug in any US style devices like a laptop, and then one heavy duty AC cable that went to a 110 to 220V transformer, don’t buy one of those little travel transformers they are useless, the transformer has to be big and weigh at least 10 lbs, an example is this:



this not only covered me during black-outs, but I ran my expensive plasma TV from this to protect the TV from power spikes and brown-outs, I know of more than one person in Ukraine who had their TVs damaged this way.

just another pro-active step to livin’ in Ukraine!!!

[krimster2]

Hi all,
   I just received a PM from someone who used to post here a lot, “Boethius”
She’s Ukrainian and used to live in Kyiv, and has probably 10X more real knowledge about Ukraine than the rest of us put together, with her permission, I post what she wrote to me:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“...My husband's family sold an apartment in Obolon, a Kyiv district.  Very desirable, because it is 200 m from a metro station.   Two bedrooms, large balcony.  Price?  Under US$50,000.

My husband follows real estate prices in Ukraine closely.  In Kyiv, they are about what you have quoted.  A woman he knows here purchased a fourplex in the Carpathians, near a famous resort.  Also under US$50,000.  This is all in 2015, so I don't think you can say it is more recent

This is a website of Ukrainian real estate prices.  The official exchange rate for $1 million hryvnias is about $42,000.  And, this page is the most desirable part of Kyiv.


http://olx.ua/nedvizhimost/kiev/?gclid=CJLQuPXyp8oCFYI7aQod93gJlg#xtor=sec-37-GOO-

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too bad she doesn’t want to post here any more, it’s everyone’s loss, I wish she’d reconsider...
but after reviewing the provided link, I can easily find prices in Kyiv that matched what I quoted

Za Mir Ludie!!

[krimster2]

"That and needing a key just to get out of the apartment.  I remember being locked in an apartment in Kiev because I misplaced the keys.  Luckily there was no fire. "

LivefromUkraine, that made me laugh, that happened to me to, my wife took all our keys

[JayH]

Hi all,
   I just received a PM from someone who used to post here a lot, “Boethius”
She’s Ukrainian
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You really can't get much right can you-- she is NOT ( & never has been)  --Ukrainian.

You continue making posts that seek to distort the reality.

[krimster2]

http://olx.ua/nedvizhimost/kiev/?gclid=CJLQuPXyp8oCFYI7aQod93gJlg#xtor=sec-37-GOO-

prices for apartments listed here are in hryvnia, what of the hryvnia?  in the last year or so it has slid against the USD by nearly 300%, the following chart shows that since October 2015, the hryvnia has been steadily weakening,

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=UAH&view=1Y

meanwhile the NBU (National Bank of Ukraine) has announced a 55% reduction in its staff:

http://www.bank.gov.ua/control/en/publish/printable_article;jsessionid=A3D51CC81796B3174012160780F68AF1?art_id=24911805&showTitle=true

and has also announced it has abandoned as one of its core functions defending the hryvnia from depreciation by buying hryvnia with dollars, because it doesn’t have the dollars!!! as a result the hryvnia is now in free-fall, any currency manipulators out there(cough,Putin,cough), ready to take advantage?

a recent stress test of Ukrainian banks found that half of those who manged to survive the last few years failed the test

In 2015, Ukraine put into effect currency controls to reduce the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from banks, as a result people trying to purchase property have complained of the difficulty in finding banks that have the cash available to support a transaction!!

every sector of Ukraine’s economy is in free-fall, see the following:
http://voxukraine.org/2015/10/13/how-ukraines-central-bank-wrecked-the-countrys-nascent-economic-recovery-in-2011-and-why-it-should-not-do-it-again/

and Ukraine has run out of funds to pay its debts, on top of that, 1.8 billion of a recent IMF loan was stolen by one of Ukraine’s biggest oligarch’s which prompted vice president Biden to deliver a message in person to the Rada to “get corruption under control, or else...”

one realtor said that there is a lot of panic selling, where people are selling their property “before they think it’s too late”, but the problem is that there are no buyers, people have no money, banks have no money and many people are un-employed

if 2016 turns out to be anything like 2015, you might see the hryvnia at 50 and even 100 to the USD is not impossible, then what of the price of an apartment in Kyiv? $10,000-$20,000 would seem about right, only time will tell...

I sure wouldn't want to be someone who bought in the last few years...

   

[krimster2]

hey jay, if  you are in Ukraine it's pretty early in the AM what are you doing up?
if she's not Ukrainian what then?

[JayH]

hey jay, if  you are in Ukraine it's pretty early in the AM what are you doing up?
if she's not Ukrainian what then?

Try Canadian.

Utmost respect  for MrsB and her experience and knowledge.Not that I always agree with her conclusions or methodology!

[krimster2]

you're right Jay, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, I really assumed she WAS Ukrainian based on her knowledge and living in Kyiv during the Soviet period, I am even MORE astounded that she's not, and yes MAXIMUM respect to her, and I ALWAYS agree with her, it would be foolish to say the least not to!

[alex330]

My buddy just bought an apartment in Kiev several months ago. He paid around 200k. Second floor in a very desirable building overlooking a popular park he says.

Two of wife's friends bought recently in Odessa. One paid 30k, the other paid 60k. Both apartments. Her last trip over late last year she said home prices in her neighborhood had gone up a bit.

In regards to bars on the windows and fires you can install them inside the home versus on the exterior. They hide behind the curtains, giving the home a more aesthetic look and have a latch you can quick release in case of fire.

[krimster2]

that's cool alex, a good innovation, I'm not sure if I'd like them on the inside though, I just hate the idea of having them at all, and I don't need them here in the US

[krimster2]

another safety feature for you and your family in Ukraine is Tamiflu!
did you know that the lethal strain of influenza known as "swine flu" is endemic to Ukraine as is the avian bird flu

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-flu-idUSKCN0US1BO20160114

I kept a stockpile of this while I was there.
In 2005-2006 there was an outbreak of bird flu in Ukraine and after it was too late the Ukrainian government destroyed thousands of infected chickens.
one winter morning during this period I walked to the shore of the black sea and saw the bodies of dozens of sea birds lining the shore, something I had never seen before.  meanwhile, many Ukrainians happily feeding pigeons out of their hands even though the birds appeared to be sick

get the tamiflu!