As the country’s residential market improves, Poland’s lenders are looking to expand their exposure within the sector, lowering their margins by up to 0,7 percent year-on-year in some cases. Lenders say that the market is healthier now, as local developers have reduced the size of the units they build in effort to match what consumers are looking for. Some market watchers warn that the market’s recovery is due to a large extent to individual investors relocating their capital into the sector, as interest on bank deposits shrink. However, demand is also being driven by new a group of buyers made up of well-educated financiers and IT specialists, who entered the Polish labor market three years ago.
However, recent data from Polish Statistical Office (GUS), suggests that enthusiasm from Polish residential developers fell during the first half of the year. Many have expressed fears that they, could be overbuilding. The recent figures show that the number of units delivered in the first six months of 2015 dropped by 4 percent, to 63,746 units. At the same time, the number of building permits for housing units approved in the first half of 2015 grew by 13 percent year-on-year to 86,424. The overall outlook is highly positive, making it possible for local lenders to re-build their mortgage portfolio by offering low interest rates.
