And still we push the bar higher above all other builders in western Crete, who construct their properties below Snobby standards. Not one builds to the same eco-build quality you get with a Snobby. Insulation in a property is vitally important to keep energy costs down and living comfort high. With a Snobby build you get just that.
Most builders in Crete, build without any form of damp proofing. Snobby lays a waterproof plastic membrane, topped by polystyrene blocks beneath the screed floor to insulate and protect against rising damp.
All Snobbys are constructed using YTONG insulated bricks - an advanced German product based on calcium silicate enclosing millions of air pores, making it extremely strong and gives excellent sound insulation. It’s also insect and termite proof, as well as being fire and water resistant. Thermal properties of YTONG significantly save on energy costs and Figures from the Centre of Renewable Energy Sources show that a house constructed with YTONG bricks achieve a 6.6% reduction in the energy used for heating and a massive 41.4% reduction on energy spent cooling the house. Also approved and exceeding international anti-seismic standards a house built with YTONG bricks provide a far better construction and more energy efficient solution than a conventional clay fired brick construction with cavity walls.
All Snobbys are fitted with low maintenance aluminium frames and double glazing to provide a snug, draught free home.
To further provide a barrier against energy loss, Snobby interior ceilings are in natural wood supported by timber beams, above which is laid an insulation layer of polystyrene.
With a solar system installed as standard, water is heated for free during the months of April until end October and while the sun shines for many days during the winter, there is an immersion fitted which boosts the water temperature as required.
Heating is provided by a traditional Cretan somba - woodburner - which burns olive wood, a plentiful and economic fuel in Crete as mature olive trees grow quickly and need to be pruned each year. Our After Sales Manager Giorgos Papatherakis, whose family has many trees is always at hand to provide wood.
So all in all, when you do your research, carefully compare what you get with a Snobby. We try our hardest to tick all the boxes, with a totally transparent pricing policy that clearly sets out what you get for your money, without any hidden costs to give you a shock. Buy a Snobby and you know precisely what you're buying - and the total all-inclusive cost, including taxes, legal fees and all purchase costs .
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( 2.9 / 72 )After all the economic pundits rushed around like headless chickens proclaiming that the end was nigh for Greece and the euro, what happened?
Not a lot really.
With over 80% of Greeks committed to the euro, the right decision was made and a pro-European government was formed. The media spotlight then switched to Spain, brought to its knees by banks who lent billions in a property boom so vast it imploded, bringing down prices and sending companies into liquidation. There was never overdevelopment in Crete and prices have therefore remained fairly stable - but still very affordable.
With rumbles about Italy and even France, leaders in Europe have, at long last, began to take decisions to strengthen the euro. Germany has conceded that a strategy for growth is needed, supported by a pan-European banking system.
All the furore about the economy - in the EU or in the UK - is all just fodder for the media and actually makes little difference to everyday life. To the man in the street, provided he is one of the vast majority who has a job, life carries on as normal. You get paid and you spend it. The question is, does your money stretch as far as it might?
Research shows the main reason people make a move overseas is because they're fed up with the rain and cold in the UK, the increase in crime and the poor standard of service provided by utility companies and the NHS.
Well stop your world and get off.
Can you see retirement beckoning? It's the time of your life when you can start living. A time when you can have your cake and eat it too! Research shows that over 40% of over 55's are planning to move to a place in the sun and what better place to consider than Crete? The weather is glorious, there's no ice or frost in winter and the cost of living is lower than in the UK. We reckon a couple can live comfortably on £1,000 per month - and that includes running a small car and eating out a few times each month.
Snobbys are designed for low maintenance and easy living. Eco-built, stylish with a traditional feel, set in a spacious private walled garden at all-inclusive prices that are the lowest you'll find in Crete for new build detached homes. Don't take our word for it. Come on over and see for yourself.
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( 3 / 300 )Everything’s quiet in the little Greek Village. The sun beats down and the square is deserted. Times are tough, everyone is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
A rich German drives into the village. He stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs, before deciding whether to spend the night there. The owner gives him the keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay the money he owes to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to settle his bill with the animal feed supplier.
The feed supplier takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna.
The owner slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit.
The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note.
The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the German will not suspect anything.
At that moment the German comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves.
No one produced anything. Nobody earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.
And that is how the Greek bailout package is supposed to work!
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( 3.2 / 154 )Quantitative easing over the last few years by the Bank of England devalued sterling, driving down its buying power against other currencies. That devaluation increased the price of holidays and the buying of property overseas.
The UK media has drawn attention away from the UK recession and its economic woes by highlighting the political confusion raging in Europe with a new French President questioning austerity, and the inability of Greece to form a government. However, from a European perspective on the ground, matters here are far more relaxed, with a firewall of billions having been built to protect the euro and prevent contagion spreading from country to country.
The Greek voters 'punished' the two main political parties by voting for minority parties, but as 77% of the electorate still wish to remain in the Euro, pundits in the know expect the new election, in June, to return a strong government that will continue with the Greek programme of cutting costs and making the country more competitive.
With the pound set to get even stronger this means a new build two bedroom detached home, in western Crete, costing 136,950€ just got a whole lot cheaper. Instead of costing you £123,378, a few months ago, the price has dropped today by a whacking £13,000 to a fantastic £109,560!
BUT WHAT HAPPENS IF GREECE GOES BACK TO THE DRACHMA?
There would be a short-term shock, as people rushed to put their savings abroad and there might need to be temporary capital controls to regulate the amount of money leaving the country.
Soon, though, the effect of cheaper exports would start to tell. That is what has happened in Iceland which, following a banking crash four years ago, is now comfortably outgrowing the eurozone.
Imagine, as you book your summer holiday, that the new exchange rate suddenly makes Greek resorts 40% or 50% cheaper than their competitors. Now imagine every business making a similar calculation when it comes to sourcing goods.
The blood-curdling threats being issued by Eurocrats should sound familiar. The UK went through precisely the same experience 20 years ago, when we were stuck with an over-valued exchange rate in the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
As in Greece, our leaders – all the main parties, the CBI, the TUC, the Bank of England – assured us that leaving the ERM would be disastrous. On September 11, 1992, John Major solemnly told us that withdrawal was ‘the soft option, the inflationary option, the devaluer’s option, a betrayal of our country’s future’.
Four days later, we left the system and our recovery began immediately. Inflation, interest rates and unemployment started falling, and we enjoyed 15 years of unbroken growth – until Gordon Brown came along and blew it away.
So with the savings to be made on your dream of buying a home in Crete, what price would you put on 320 days of sunshine a year and a quality of life which costs far less than living in the doom and gloom and cold of the UK.
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( 3.1 / 244 )Greece has been pilloried in the media, but good news is not newsworthy and the media frenzy has now moved on. It's time for matters to be re-addressed.
When the UK had to go cap in hand to the IMF in the seventies in order to borrow to survive, it was North Sea Oil that helped the nation.
Notwithstanding the agreed EU loan package, Greece too can at last see a light at the end of the tunnel with the discovery of natural gas and oil.
Currently eight of the world's largest seismic survey companies are bidding for exploration. Two will be awarded contracts by end April to begin exploratory drilling before the end of 2012. Substantial hydrocarbon deposits have been identified in the Ionian Sea, near Corfu and another south of Crete.
It is anticipated Greece will begin earning a revenue stream from these deposits prior to 2020.
Greeks are lazy good for nothings!
For nearly six years Greece has had to endure the longest recession in history. Unemployment stands at over 20%. Savage austerity measures have slashed wages and pensions in an effort to reduce sovereign debt. Despite this the Greek people are struggling to move forward, notwithstanding the UK media purporting to show Greeks as lazy good for nothings.
Research carried out by the OECD - the respected Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has found this image of Greeks to be untrue.
Statistics by the OECD have revealed the average German works a total of only 1,390 hours per year. In Spain it's 1,654 hours while in Portugal it's 1,719, but the average Greek works a massive 2,119 hours per year!
The ONS - the UK government's Office for National Statistics confirm that the average worker in Britain only works 1,888 hours per year.
That means the average Greek works more than six weeks a year longer than his counterpart in the UK.
Greece sees the light
With an abundance of sunshine, Greece is seeking to export power generated by solar panels before 2015.
In the coming weeks the Energy Minister, George Papaconstantinou has confirmed Greece will adopt legislation to simplify planning and aims to connect its first 300 megawatt plant by the end of next year as part of the Greek Helios solar-energy project.
Named after the ancient God of the Sun, Helios is a 20 billion investment aimed at installing 10 gigawatts of solar panels in Greece by 2050. Based on current solar energy prices in Germany the project has the potential for generating a revenue of 80 billion euros for Greece over the next 25 years. The electricity produced will be exported to other European Union nations and will also help Greece meet the EU objectives for renewable energy targets in Europe and low carbon economies by 2020.
Greece is doing great!
With the UK sovereign debt standing in excess of 1 trillion pounds - and still not being markedly reduced - Greece should be applauded for the steps it has taken to redress its sovereign debt.
Did you know, with current sovereign debt and borrowing needed to prop up major banks, plus the debt of pension funds such as the Post Office to be addressed - the UK borrowing percentage of GDP is the same as Greece!
While the UK has been dilly dallying, savage austerity measures have been introduced in Greece and an EU Taskforce established to support the implementation of structural reforms to modernise the country's bureaucracy.
So what has that accomplished?
Over two years Greece has achieved an annual rate of fiscal consolidation averaging 4.2% of GDP - the highest level recorded in the developed world over several decades.
Greece ranks number two in terms of the degree of adjustment happening in its economy during 2009 - 2011, according to figures released by Euro Plus Monitor.
The stereotype of Greece criticised as the lame, lazy duck of the EU is now no longer true.
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