Does all of that even matter? Isn't it just deducted from your US taxes because of the tax treaty (no double taxation between US and Malta?)

Looking at property at the moment. It appears that Remax and Frank Salt have the most available.

A few observations. Remax seem to take more photos, which makes it easier to look. It seems that the size of apartments is not what dictates the price, so much. It is whether it has a sea-view/good terrace and how modern the furniture is.

There are plenty of affordable sea-view apartments. You can pick up a large 2-bed for 500 euros a month, but all these have awful early-1980s furniture in. The same property will be 1000 euros a month with modern furniture. The number of bedrooms and overall floorspace appears to have little bearing on the price, compared to most cities.

Bargains seem to be in Msida. Is the place bad (lots of construction going on?), or just less popular? Msida looks ok to me. Very central and close enough to the water. I guess it's probably boring, compared to St Julians, but that doesn't bother me so much. It would keep me out of trouble.

I can live without a sea view, but I would like somewhere with a terrace big enough to have a table out in the sun. Few places come with a communal pool and Malta is not blessed with many beaches. How easy is it to find a nice big outdoor pool where you can sunbathe and swim for not too much money? Are they all over the city?

If I move into an apartment with no internet connection, how long will it take to get connected, are their any areas in the city where the connection may be slower and what's the best package to get for superfast internet? I'm not bothered if it comes as part of a tv package as I never seem to watch tv anyway, I just watch whatever I can find online.

Where do most of the newly-arrived poker players hang out? Is there a bar you've all taken over? Many thanks for any answers, in advance.

is that your plan?
you just getting the bank account in CAN and dippin'?
or are you staying for the 180 days then going to malta/EU?

i'm not sure..
i tried calling the Expat offices the other day and no one answered..
that was the reminder that Tim Stone told me itt...
'any money remitted to Malta is taxed'..

i'm by no means the guy to talk to about this..
i'm still trying to figure it out for myself..

.

Thanks, I think I will give her a try as they have a couple of properties that sound interesting.

Maybe I'll throw a house-warming party for 2plus2 members, so you can all come over and say...

'Look how he's doing... look how he's living.... look how ugly this is...'.

Am I understanding the tax thing right? Its taxfree to play poker since its in eu if your on eu sites?So you only have to pay the 15% when you deposit into maltese bank account?

Be careful, some agencies (all of them?) don't update their websites and leave ads for apartements that are rented to attract more customers. Ask in advance if an apartment is available if you want it specifically.

Know that once you visit an apartment w a real estate agent, you can't rent it through another agency. Also, most of the apartments (at least the more expensive ones) are listed by all the big agencies.

Fyi, the beach club for my hotel charged close to 10 euros per day to provide access to their beach club if you weren't sleeping at the hotel.

Yeah not sure about the prices and indeed most are part of a hotel, Fortina Hotel's beachclub is definitely expensive, think youre referring to that hotel?

Think Surfside/Exiles are good alternatives, no pools though but all pools are salt water too so dont see a reason not to swim in the beautiful sea Especially Surfside downstairs is pretty cool in summer, often with DJ's or at least loud music

Also think Preluna beachclub shouldnt be expensive and they have a pool.

It sounds expensive if you want to swim nearly every day though. Especially with drinks and food, which you will obviously buy, as often as not. I might get somewhere with a communal pool. Few places have them, but it seems worth the extra money.

Generally, I thought the usual scenario was that a lot of hotel pools where free, so long as you bought something at the bar and didn't bring anything in to eat or drink? Maybe that's changed now?

Have many players actually made the move to Malta since Black Friday?

I'm interested in this answer as well.

I wish there was a catch all thread where everyone who has relocated since BF lists the country they've moved to, how long they plan on staying, and their residency/visa status (if any). It'd be interesting to see which destinations are most popular and also highly informative b/c there could be some countries that others who want to relocate are overlooking.

I'm pretty sure it's Canada, by quite a stretch. I imagine that most of the players who have moved there were living in the northern-most regions of the USA, prior to the move.

I actually get the impression that not many have moved at all.

yea i think this is my plan, can't see any problems with it. when i was abroad in denmark it was easy enough to just withdraw to my boa and that card wasn't even chip and pin so it couldn't be used some places. the cibc account has a euro card and they were cool with me using it for poker. i'm only staying 90 days in malta then legally i gotta move on.

yo
I admit I didn't read anything from this thread yet. is very long. how many ppls(poker players, alcohol addicts, party animals) are living in Malta ATM? aprox? I'm thinking very serious in moving there but I don't have with who. I could move alone if I could find some action peoples around there.

a ****load...

i could name easily 20 germans, some dutch, some spaniards and some skandis... In the end I assume there are around 100 guys who play for a living on the island atm and the tendency is that tis number will increase further...

and even in this thread i read about people i don't know who are living here for quite a while...

as being said, Malta is def. the poker island for young and outgoing people. in the end not many of the guys who r here qualify as nerds...


for the agencies: they all have pretty much the same properties. i do business exclusively with dhalia bc i feel i have the best service there but everybody has to see this for himself.

for example a friend of mine came here 2 weeks ago to look at an appartment he found in the internet. obviously as soon as he arrived he was told that this thing was rented out even if they told him b4 it is available. this would never happen with dhalia. and yes, there are a ****load of appartments online which are rented out so i would use this only as an indicator of what is possible and what i can expect for which price... i got to know many guys who came here and told me "dude, i found this amazing penthouse on the internet for 3k with pool and stuff, i want to rent it" "I give u 5:1 it's rented out up to 500..." i never lost...

for the nightlife: Paceville definitely gets quite boring after a while but especially in summer there are many many other places u can go which are very very decent:

- Bedouin Bar (every friday near Dragonara; crowd 21++, house music, directly at the water)
- Marakesh (different events each weekend, crowd 21++ as well, house music for the main part)
- Gianpula (massive Club in the center of the island with different rooms, very nice sound system, etc)
- Numero Uno (biggest open air club with the best parties each sunday)
- Club 22 (in the Hilton tower, little older crowd, lots of gaming people there, amazing view)
- Boat Parties (Nordic Boat Party one time each month to mention the best)

also there is at least one special event in off locations each week like Surfside, Black Pearl, Popeye Village, at some Beach, etc.


i might be able to get US players in contact with a guy who works in gaming and who might be able to sort out a visa for u so if u are interested in additional information here just add me at Skype: TimStone84

furthermore i can forward you to my real estate agent through whom i already rented the 3 flat i was/am living in. the good thing here is that u tell the guy what u want and he will show it to you. alot of other agents showing u alot of rubbish and wasting ur time even if u tell them exactly what u want...

one again for the tax thing:

- from what I heard (spoke with some lawyers) there are different options:

1. you pay (ordinary residence scheme); brackets are 15%, 25%, 35%
2. you get permanent residence scheme (not easy to get, will cost u some money or alot of paperwork): you pay flat 15%
3. you found a ltd. abroad and do everything over this company. u pay 35% and get 30% back. ur effective taxes are 5%
4. u keep ur money offshore (transfer to whatever country but not Malta): you pay 0%
5. u just cash to maltese bank account and don't declare anything: you pay 0%

imo everybody has to choose for himself what lets him sleep at night here...


cheers

TimStone 10x a lot for your long post. I see that you know many things about renting flats. Can you tell me a range of prices for flats with 2 rooms? what's the most populated and nice city? I don't want a dead city :P
10x again

How can the live cash games be so soft, if there are so many pros living on the island?

Maybe cause internet pros generally strongly dislike or just flat out hate live pokerz...

THANK YOU!

live poker is too bleeding slow... However lots of Italians who are v aggressive preflop and on the flop..

i called down to portomaso last night and the poker room was hopping.
Loads of tables and there was a 5/10 game going which is the first time I have seen this outside of one of the bigger tournies..

Maybe because yesterday was day1 of the Poker Live Adventure 300 EUR buyin/100k gtd tournament

haha, that would explain the girls walking around in skin tight jumpsuits

I know it's slow, but at my local casino, the £1/£2 cash game is weaker than 5c/10c online. In fact, it's not even close. Some guys are set-mining with 4 big blinds left in their stack.

One guy sits down with about 800 big blinds and opens about 80% of his hands for 7.5 big blinds. Rather than being glad about this, most players then move to another table, even if they have position on the guy. They do this because they want to play nearly every hand as well and they can't do it with him there.

These are the regs. It's beyond a farce.

I have seen a few guys surfing this week at Ghanj Tuffieha Bay (pronouced as eye-n two-fee-yEAh-ha) near the Radisson Hotel at Paradise Bay in the north of the island. There is one guy in particular who has been there surfing every time I have walked by there lately, which is quite often since I live nearby. I can tell that he's a very good surfer as he can catch the waves consistently so he probably learned elsewhere. It looks pretty fun but the waves are wind breaks and seem quite inconsistent. I had some fun body surfing them the other day. Surfing is definitely getting more popular here. There were about 6 guys out there one day this weekend. Whether or not you decide to surf, I recommend checking out that beach because I think it is one of the nicest spots in Malta. You can also climb up on top of the table top mountain in the distance for a nice view if you don't mind scrambling up the crack at the front of it.

I am not sure where they are getting the surf boards from. I read online that there is a surf shop in Sliema but I'm not sure if you can buy boards there. I don't think there is anywhere to rent them either, but maybe that has changed. I am interested in learning to surf but I'm not sure that this is the best place because of the inconsistent breaks. I could be wrong though. It looks fairly relaxing at least, so you won't get rocked as hard as when I tried to learn in Australia. I may just wait to learn in Biarritz, France or particularly the Canary Islands sound like an amazing place to spend some time to surf in the winter due to the warm weather, water and break.

I do think Malta would be a very good place to learn to windsurf. There tends to be a consistent direction wind many days and Mellieha bay seems to be a good place to do it. There are some schools that offer lessons so I would like to try that this summer, as well as learning to scuba dive. There are also quite a few people who do kite surfing in Mellieha Bay, which looks very intense on the windy days in the winter. I have heard it can be dangerous but I'm sure it's a great adrenaline rush. Also the mountain biking here is better than I expected, particularly in the north island. It is mainly old farm roads and quite bumpy and rocky so you need a good suspension. But I can ride for miles without seeing cars or even many people. It is quite surprising considering the ridiculous population density here. I can show some trails if anyone wants to go for a ride.

I talked to my accountant 2 weeks ago and he confirmed that the permanent residency scheme is currently suspended for new applicants. However, since I was granted PR status as a non-EU citizen last year I am still able to renew it. Hopefully that continues because I am quite enjoying it here in the sun by the sea, but with Malta laws you never know. He told me that currently the only way for non-EU residents to gain residency here now is through a work permit for a specialized position. I believe that the company hiring you would need to prove that your skills are specialized enough that nobody residing in Malta could do the job. They do this to protect jobs for local citizens. So most jobs at e-gaming companies would probably not suffice unless you have high level education related to the job.

Another option that I forgot to ask him about would be applying for non-EU residency as a student at U of Malta. This is an option I originally considered before deciding on permanent residency. If you are accepted there then you may be able to get residency in that way and without as stringent capital requirements as with PR. This could be something to follow up with an expert about if you are willing to study something of interest to you while you're here.

I would recommend my accountant to anyone thinking of moving to Malta or to anyone with some tax or banking questions who is already living here. He is the most helpful professional I have worked with here. Also his rates are very reasonable - about 200 euros per year for my tax return and residency application combined. He will explain how to set everything up for banking to minimize hassles and taxation issues. Also his partner used to work for Malta Inland Revenue so they have many connections there and can speed up applications. This is very useful because the government bureaus there are insanely chaotic and disorganized. They still use cardboard boxes filled with green manilla folders for residency applications and these are stacked everywhere! Plus with all the current refugee issues you could be waiting a long time to get an answer unless you have some connections.

His name is Aldo Vassallo and his office number (00356) 21356667. I don't gain anything if you use him, I just find him helpful at answering questions. Plus with a good accountant you may be able to avoid expensive residency relocation services and lawyer opinions here in Malta.

Hope that helps,
Jon