The real estate advertisement portal Otodom and Polityka Insight have published a joint report on the situation in the Polish real estate market in the first quarter of 2022. The report also includes rental data.
According to the report, a typical Polish tenant is usually a couple without children under the age of 30, with a disposable income of around PLN 3-4,000 per person. The vast majority of them rent a flat because they cannot afford to buy their own home. This answer is indicated by 79% of people interviewed in the survey, cited by the authors of the report.
According to the data, today, a typical tenant household consists of two people. Usually, 25% of all tenants are childless couples. 5% of people renting flats are single parents with a child, and 14% are households rented jointly by several flatmates. According to the data collected in the report, as much as 65% of current tenants are now thinking about buying a flat or a house.
“Every tenth tenant intends to buy an apartment or house within a year, and other 15% in the next three years. Such attitudes are the result of Poles’ strong attachment to the property as in total 89% of Poles prefer to live in their own apartments. Among tenants, this percentage is slightly lower and amounts to 82%.
The number of new homes for sale is declining, but prices continue to rise. Apartments for sale on the secondary market are also becoming more expensive, although in the last quarter the process was slower than real estate from developers.
“In the first quarter of 2022, the average offer prices of flats on the Otodom portal increased by 4.6%. This increase was slightly lower than in the previous quarter (5.2%), but it caused the acceleration of price dynamics to an average of 16.5% annually. This is the fastest growth rate so far during the current boom phase in the housing market.
According to the authors, the main reasons for the increase in prices are economic factors including higher prices of building materials and the shortage of workers in the construction industry. But in the last quarter, psychological factors still played a role. Especially investors wanted to sell their flats as quickly and as expensive as possible in order to do it before the expected drop in demand.
The prices of studios and apartments in smaller towns increased the most in the last 3 months due to people can afford only less credit because of their lower creditworthiness, suggest the authors of the report. Thus, buyers are looking for cheaper options. And smaller apartments located out of metropolises are cheaper.
Arkadiusz Słomczyński order