My “Midnight Summer Dream”….

Part 2

(if you want to read part 1, please press here; if you want to read part 3, please press here)

2001: Receiving back properties…
      Next year rolled out fast. The most important fact that I can recount was that plenty of my Romanian friends received properties! Many courts ended, many property titles were registered… several friends of mine inherited properties from their grand parents or other family members. I will always laugh remembering how much fun we had with Matei, who inherited during the previous year 1 hectare (= 10.000 sq.m.) at Pipera area! He was begging us to stop, but we were laughing with tears, as he made a lethal mistake: He told us that he became the owner of an intravillant land, but when we went there during a weekend, we just saw few villas and a lot of cows…
      Most of my friends wanted to sell this kind of properties, so as to buy an apartment inside the city. Some of them sold them and bought a car instead. I told them that it was wrong, but how can you prevent someone from doing this? Someone who never had the pleasure to feel important and he bought together with his car self esteem, appreciation by (a certain type of) women, unforgettable moments of happiness… (even if some of them didn't have money to put gas and they were borrowing…)
      Some others started creating small business. My family had a small business too, so I was trying to help them with some simple advices. No, they were too proud to accept, they "knew all". Also, their need to feel important made them treat their employees bad, even their clients, as their approach was "I do to you a favor, by providing you my services (or products)".
      I was impressed by one analysis back then… "If we continue like this, Romania will reach the Gross Domestic Product of Hungary by 2031, in 30 years from now". "But Hungary is half of Romania" I asked someone… "You can imagine…" he replied.

2002:  "Romania will enter in European Union in 2007" "Oh yeah…"
      People nowadays forget very fast. But 2002 was the year that they were informed about European Union and the project of expanding furthermore to the Balcans, by including Romania and Bulgaria. Since then, the countries started being monitored intensively, as they were supposed to enter in E.U. in 2007. I was watching tv with some friends of mine when we heard the news. All of them laughed. No one believed that we would ever enter… This was the year that Euro currency was adopted too, but still the majority of business in Romania continued being expressed in dollars.
      The next days the media were comparing several sectors of social life in Romania and other European countries. It was then when they started this funny thing, which goes on till today: Comparing a country which left Communism just few years ago, with a country which was member of European Union for 20 – 30 years, having received more billions of euro than all the Domestic Product of Romania! I was trying to explain to my friends that they had to be patient, the country will evolve soon. No, they wanted all, right at that moment…
      My land in Mogosoaia had already a higher price, while I had also changed my job. Meanwhile I had collected money again and I had a dilemma: Either to buy a better car and go to Monte Carlo for vacation, as my lovely girlfriend was begging me, or to use it in another way: To send it to Greece and deposit it there, receiving instead a loan of 60.000 euro. With this money I could purchase an apartment and also buy another land, a small one inside the city, an opportunity!
      I followed my instinct, which caused me a breaking up with my girlfriend. Yes, she loved me as she was saying, but her heart was quite flexible. A friend of mine, doctor, proved to her that he loved her more (and his materialistic proofs were very strong), so she broke up with me. Now that I am thinking about this, I can not complain. I had lots of time to search for my apartment. I finally bought one at Dristor area, almost at the center!
      In the same time, I bought a small land, at Titan area. "Small" I said? Well, not exactly… 850 sq.m., in an area of blocks. But comparing to my initial investment in Mogosoaia, it was smaller. I paid for it 46.000 euro, including the taxes, the notary's fees and the Real Estate broker's commission. Yes, I used the services of an agent. He was introduced to me by my ex girlfriend, he really needed the money and I helped him a bit.
      So, now I had one land in Mogosoaia and one in Titan. The one in Mogosoaia could host the construction of villas, with Coefficient of 0,3 (so, 4.000 X 0,3 = 1.200 sq.m. to build). The one in Titan could host the construction of blocks, with Coefficient of 1,8 (so, 850 X 1,8 = 1.530 sq.m. to build). "Who will need to build so many sq.m.? Who will buy these apartments? There are no projects in the city" people were telling me… I knew, but I didn't feel stressed. I had deposited 20.000 euro in the bank, so I was able to support the loan for some years. What the hell… the prices should go up in 5 – 7 years… At least this was my hope, despite the opinion of all the rest…

(tomorrow the third part)