The average price per square meter of an apartment fell by 0.5% m/m in Poland in January, Business Insider Polska calculated, based on data from rynekpierwotny.pl. This is the largest monthly price drop since April 2021.
For one square meter of an apartment, developers expected an average of PLN 11.34 thousand in January in Poland, i.e. this is according to offer prices weighted by the available offer in the 14 largest cities. This is 0.5% less than in December and 9.5% more than a year ago in the same period, according to our calculations based on data from rynekpierwotny.pl. There hasn’t been such a large monthly price drop since April 2021. For comparison, we report that December’s inflation rate was 16.6% y/y, the average annual rate in 2022. 14.4%, and interest rates on deposits in some of the big banks’ offers already reach 8% per year (although often in promotional offers, such as those limited for a period of three months). As you can see, the investment in an apartment not only no longer beats the rate of return on inflation, but is already comparable to bank deposits.
Business Insider notes that the price cut has “done sales well.” The data shows that a total of 4,379 apartments found a buyer last month, more than double the number from a month earlier, and still the highest since September 2021.
Prices compared to December rose significantly in only five of the fourteen cities analyzed, namely: Bydgoszcz, Białystok, Łódź, Lublin and Olsztyn. They remained almost unchanged in Wroclaw and Krakow. In the remaining cities, they declined, with the most in Rzeszów and Poznań. A combination of price declines and sales increases is evident here. In Poznań, the average listing price fell by 2.4% and sales rose to 445 apartments, up 389% from December and 96% year-on-year. This time, Poznań overtook Gdańsk, while also being overtaken by Łódź for the highest sales during the month and ranked fourth in Poland, it said.
In Warsaw, with a 0.4% reduction in the offer price, there was an increase in sales to 1,000,501 apartments, up 117% m/m and 31% y/y. And already a complete shot of sales occurred in Rzeszów, where prices are the lowest of the surveyed cities. With a 4.5% drop in price, sales went up to 131 apartments, or by 719% m/m and 404% y/y.
In January, developers disposed of as many as 10.1% of the apartments on offer, with the highest number in Warsaw (13.7%) and Rzeszów (13.5%). Such a high result had not been seen since last April, it stated.
Source: Business Insider and ISBnews
