Archive for September 2009
Tips for moving your house in Istanbul – Part II – Estate Agent
1- Most of the real estate agents are really not that smart. They stuck with an idea that buyer will con them somehow and deal with the house owner. It happens most of the time i guess, however when real estate guy is more careful than yourself, you feel unsafe and the idea of a fraud comes to your mind easily.
2- You need to pay some percentage. Officialy it is 3% for the buyer and 3% for the seller. If you buy a house for 100k then you pay 3 and the house owner pays 3 as well to the agent. But in times of crisis this is debatable. Most of the real estate agents are ok with 2 or 1,5 percent.
3- It is very important for a real estate agent to look trustworthy, however there are not so many trusthworthy types around.
4- A new house needs some new appliances. The real estate agent is the only one that can help you around with the plumber, electrician etc. He gets a share from these costs for sure but as he is not so smart he does not offer a whole maintanance pack for my house. And when gives the price piece by piece i can easily understand his “smart” way of earning some more money. He loses the job and my trust.
5- If i was an estate agent i would have created a group of neighbour technicians and get the best price from them. Then I would create packages for the potential buyers and renters. In the end i would have offered the packages with a sensible pricing policy.
6- The estate agent deals with your bureucratic duties as well. At some point the money shall be transferred. If the house owner is impatient he asks for cash. But walking in Istanbul with 100k is pretty dangerous. How you solve it? You go to your bank, ask for a delayed cheque, when everybody signs the papers then the money is released by the bank. However bank sometimes like to keep the money to itself for more than 3 days. Like our case.
7- No house is perfect. There surely is a minor problem in it. If you like to avoid it you go and buy the house, if you can’t you look for another one. Don’t listen estate agent bullshitting about the house, you probably know it much better.
8- Do not try to solve the paper duty by yourself. You may end up with no money and no house in the end.
9- Try to make the estate agent feel he fooled you, then he stops being stupid and act like a normal person.
10- There is some bribery going on in estate business, the estate agent deals with it as well. The cost of total paper duty is around 2000 TL.
Tips for moving your house in Istanbul – Part 1 – The Bank
1- Don’t move if you have the chance.
2- I mean it. It is a tough and dirty road moving to a new place. If you buy the place it is even worse. Let’s start with the bank issues.
Not in Istanbul and not my house
3- Your dream house is on sale and you decide to buy it. You apply for the mortgage and you wait for a week to get the confirmation for a 10 year debt.
4- The papers you need to sign are amazing. I signed around 40 pages of paper that is written in favour of the bank. The bank can chop my head off if they want. I mean it.
5- You may think that the interest rate is constant however it is changing in some extreme conditions. It writes some where in the 40 pages you sign. Try to bargain for the expenses you will paying for the credit you are borrowing.
6- The bank will ask you for a life and house insurance. They will rob you once again when they are selling you both. The disaster insurance is needed and it is also cheap. But the health insurance is pretty expensive.
7- The bank makes you feel that it is doing you a favour. But you will pay them for 10 years and when you miss a month they have the right to take your house.
8- After signing 40 pages, the bank has the right to say this; “Sorry we get your signature on wrong papers. Please come again tomorrow for the new set of signatures.” If i do something wrong they make me pay it, when they do wrong it’s only one “sorry”. Sorry seemst to be the easiest word for banks.
9- İş Bankası in Beyoğlu, the one near Odakule is located in an old building and you need to chech its elevators if you have the chance. I have not seen such an elevator for almost 10 years. It is renewed some time in 80s and has a retro look.
İş bankası - Beyoğlu
10- The woman that dealt with our account was a funny one, i tasked her whether she loved her job or not, she told her hate with a big smile on her face.
11- Going back to tips, İş Bankası is one of the merciful banks in the market. Do not fall for Garanti’s big ad campaigns. They are simply terrible.
So i spent around 1600 TL for the costs of mortgage, 450 a year for life insurance, 80 for disaster insurance. The money borrowed is 85000 TL and i will be paying 1260 per month for 10 years. I was already paying 1000 to rent so a fair deal for me.
In the next part; What is the deal with the house owner and real estate agent?
5 Educational Startups to Watch
According to Fast Company September 2009 Issue;
are the starups to watch in online education programs. The magazine has 6 pages dedicated to this topic and it is a great article to read.
Facebook-like educational sharing sites will be more popular in the upcoming years replacing traditional educational systems.
Guardiola attends Coldplay concert
I have once read in Aceto blog that Barcelona was listening to Coldplay in the team bus. I am not sure whether it was under Rijkaard or Guardiola. Anyway;
According to this blog Barcelona boss Josep Guardiola rccently went to Coldplay concert in Barcelona and just before the concert he was greeted by the viewers with standing ovation.
He was also seen singing along Fix You during the concert.
It will be a tough year for Guardiola as Barcelona is not that hungry for success this year. They will probably lose some games due to lack of concentration.
PES 2010 – My first impression
I have been playing PES 2010 for a week now. It is the preview version and it is for PC platform.So this is not my final view on this game.
Let me tell you some good some OK and some bad stuff about this franchise.
The user interface, graphical developments are faboulous. The game looks really good and the font type, use of colours are simply amazing.
The version i have does not include UEFA Champions League, Europa League, some visuals are missing in the Master League and also there is no online mode available.
The dribbling system changed in a way. It is more realistic now. However it effects the playability. It is really hard to dribble. The players accelerate more realistically. Again a problem for action lovers. PES 2010 is more of a simulation this time.
The position you play your players effect their ability. If you put a winger to a defensive midfield position he looses quite a big amount of his ability. You see the ability with numbers up to 100. It drops around 10-20 points per player when you misposition them. There is a card and slider system as well. I will write another article or share a video about that. I can tell that you will be spending much more time in formation screens this year.
The loading screen is gone. When you start the match via a “Quit Watching” tab you start to see the stadium you will be playing in. Then comes the players from tunnel and match starts. I have not seen a big improvement in fan animations.
In the version i had the latest transfers were not in place yet. Such as Zlatan in Barcelona.
Be A Legend mode is more detailed. The camera angles are really well implemented. It is a great mode to play this time.
I will continue to update you with my impressions. It is to early to grade this game. Now i wait for FM 2010 review code. I will write down my impressions of that game in the weekend.
Moleskine Art by Datafobik
This will be some kind of an ad however the efforts spent in it deserves a special applause. Therefore i would like to share these cool Moleskine notebooks with you.
The covers are created by Datafobik, whom i know of from MYK Medya. She is very talented, check out Yahoyt Magazine for instance. She contributes to that as well. Now she is sharing her talent with everybody with a small price to pay.
What Datafobik does is this; You submit your picture to her and she draws a portrait of you on a Moleskine notebook and sends it to you. It is a great birthday present for someone you know. It also is a great collectible item. I will try to trick her into doing series of design for collectible purposes.
Anyway here on this page. Emeksensin.com. You can find out all her designs. Some of them are brilliant. Such as Street Fighter paintings. I love creative stuff and Datafobik’s works are standing out…
Watching Messi
I watched Lionel Messi in a stadium first time in 2005 in Netherlands. He was cruising with Argentina U20 National Team. Turkey was waiting to play against Spain and Argentina beat Colombia 2-0. Messi was amazing that day. I knew that he was exceptional that time but the margin between him and other players were not that big.
In Super Cup i watched him once again and i was really surprised. He is still skinny and small however his talents and capacity almost tripled in four years. I have known that he improved drastically but seeing this improvement with my own eyes was special. He was the only one worth watching during the final and he deserved a big applause in the end.
Inception Trailer
Your mind is the scene of the crime. I look forward to that movie which is due to come in Summer 2010. Director is Christopher Nolan and Leonardo Di Caprio is the lead actor.
Notes from Monaco
– UEFA Super Cup is a cool event. The teams are good. But something is missing. The players do not take it that seriously. UEFA has to look and find that missing thing.
– Stade Louis is terrible. In such a rich city that stadium is a disgrace. The pitch was not good as well. It affected Barcelona’s play.
– I watched the match with CNN’s European sports correspondent Pedro Pinto. He is a nice guy with a vast knowledge on Turkish football. When we got bored we talked on Turkish football, Emre Belözoğlu, Hakan Şükür, Arda and Nihat.
– The draw ceremonies were brilliant. The stage was amazing. Pedro hosted the Champions League draw with a girl called Melanie. She looked beautiful and tall on stage but afterwards she left the exhibition center with jeans, a tshirt and a cap. Not that attractive.
– Joan Laporta is brimming with confidence. He is always cheerful. He was the star of all the events. He pays close attention to Lionel Messi all the time. As if someone is going to steal him.
– Edwin van der Sar who is very tall is married to a woman of average height, around 1,60. Vitor Baia is trying to be a football executive. Paolo Maldini who will certainly be a UEFA President one day was smiling all the time. Luis Figo may have a slight problem with English.
– Emilio Butragueno shared his drive with us back to the hotel. The girl driving the car has not noticed who he is as she was pretty young. That created a funny moment. However Butragueno is really modest. He will soon be coming to İstanbul again.
-France Football Federation President walked all the way between la Meridien and Grimaldi Forum despite his age. He never asked for a car. And he was in the back seat of the bus that took us to stadium in the evening.
-Michel Platini was friendly to everybody. He had fun. He gets bored easily in receptions and ceremonies.
– Monaco is a city composed of cars and girls(looking for rich guys). However the architecture and sea is great.
– The weather was really hot when we got there. Le Meridien’s lack of internet was the other major issue.
– The referee Frank de Bleeckere was terrible. Shakthar deserved to win at some point.
– I tweeted all the events during the 3 days which was really satisfying. I used an N97 all the time. The battery life of that phone is an issue. You can follow me on Twitter.
İlker Uğur 