Forecasting general long-term price trends in a property market is never easy.

And in the short-term, where many unforeseen, temporary and cyclical factors can play a part, the job is even harder.

Forecasts, however intelligently arrived at, are one thing; actual hard data on how a development is performing is quite another.

Measuring our performance

But the best measure of our performance, we believe, is whether the investment deals we spend so long hunting down and researching actually outperform in their particular property market.

With new builds (off-plan deals), it is notoriously difficult to find an appropriate measure of real growth before they are completed - because the real proof of growth is the prices that units fetch when they are completed and start to come onto the secondary market.

At that time we can see clearly what profits are achievable - a direct measure of market value.

But there is another, slightly less perfect (but still very effective), measure that we can make in the meantime.

The key here is that the measure of capital growth, to be truly believable, must be accurate.

So, during the construction phase of a development, how can we measure capital growth?

Simple - we use the developer's prices.

This is by no means a perfect reflection of value, as in many cases it can seriously undervalue the market worth of units.

It's important to bear in mind what phase the construction of the development is in and what phase the sale of units is in.

Towards the latter stages of construction, the developer's prices will generally more accurately reflect full market value. BUT the developer will also be keen to sell at this stage, as the construction phase nears its end. So this will often hold down prices somewhat.

Even more importantly, once the developer has sold all but the last few units -often the least desirable units will be left - he will no longer market the development, nor update his prices.

So, prices for these units will generally represent BELOW market value for the development as a whole.

This is why we are only able to indicate the MINIMUM amount of growth indicated by the developers' prices.

Crucially, the question is: Have the units chosen by Property Secrets beaten the market average?

And, even using these conservative/minimum figures, they have!

Sometimes by a very considerable margin.

The price growth data for the market in 2005 has been collected by Poland's leading property research and analysis company, redNet Sp. z o.o (www.rednet.pl) .

In the tables below, we have recorded the increase in growth for our deals in Poland and annualised the result. We have then compared that figure with the annual rate of growth in the market.

To fully grasp the rate of growth we're looking at here, it's important to read the comments about each development AND to bear in mind that these are minimum growth figures.

We think the numbers speak for themselves...

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