In August, secondary market apartments saw the biggest price increase in Poznań, where the price per square meter jumped by 3 percent, exceeding PLN 12,000 – according to a report by GetHome.pl. Increases were also recorded in cities of the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis, Wrocław and the Tri-City.
According to data from the GetHome.pl portal, the average price per square meter in August increased in Wrocław, Poznań, the Tri-City and cities of the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis. It was cheaper in Kraków, while in Warsaw and Łódź the average price per square meter of premises on the secondary market maintained the level from July.
The prices of used apartments have increased the most in Poznań
– Many potential buyers of used apartments came to the conclusion that there was no need to hurry and went on vacation in August. And when they returned, they probably noticed that there were more apartments on the market. The problem is that in some of the largest metropolises, the cheapest ones have disappeared from the offer – assessed Marek Wielgo, an expert from the GetHome.pl portal, quoted in the report.
According to calculations, used apartments have seen the biggest price increase in Poznań, where the average asking price per square meter has gone up by 3 percent. In the capital of Wielkopolska, the same figure was exceeded ceiling PLN 12,000 per meter.
The price increase of around 2% took place in the cities of the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis (PLN 8.6 thousand/sq m). In turn, in Wrocław (PLN 14.3 thousand/sq m) and the Tri-City (PLN 15.5 thousand/sq m), apartments on the secondary market went up in price by 1%. In the remaining metropolises, prices remained at the July level – Warsaw (PLN 18.2 thousand/sq m) and Łódź (PLN 8.7 thousand/sq m) or fell by 1% – Kraków (less than PLN 17.5 thousand/sq m).
Stable housing prices in the largest cities
The authors of the report emphasized that August was the fourth month in a row in Krakow, and the third in Warsaw and Łódź. prices of apartments on the secondary market have not increased. In the Tri-City, the series of three months without increases was interrupted. In the case of the first three metropolises, this is most likely the result of the growing supply of used apartments – experts assessed.
According to data from the Adradar real estate portal search engine, the offer in the capital increased by 5 percent in August, in Krakow – by 3 percent, and in Łódź – by 2 percent. In the Tri-City, the offer shrank by 2 percent. The choice of apartments on the secondary markets of Poznań (by 5 percent) and Wrocław (by 3 percent) also increased, but this did not stop the growth of the average price per square meter.
– There can only be one explanation: relatively cheap apartments disappeared from the offer, and those that remained increased the average – assessed Wielgo.
According to the report's authors, it is rather unlikely that sellers raised prices. According to Adradar data, at the end of August, there were around 176.5 thousand “unique offers for sale of apartments” posted across the country, which is 12 percent more than in July. Since December last year, their number has increased by 43 percent. As indicated, this indicates that there were more apartments that sellers were introducing to the market than people willing to buy them.
But offers were also withdrawn. In August, 25.5 thousand offers were withdrawn from the secondary market, which is over a quarter less than a month earlier. “Could this indicate a large drop in demand for second-hand apartments? It is difficult to state this unequivocally, because sellers could simply have withdrawn some of the apartments due to a lack of buyers. On the other hand, August was a record month in terms of the number of apartments put up for sale,” the report's authors added.
Since the beginning of the year, the leader in price increases has been the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis, where second-hand apartments have gone up in price by an average of 10 percent. Three cities tied for second place, with a 7 percent increase in the price per square meter: Wrocław, Łódź and Poznań. In turn, in Warsaw and Kraków, used apartments have gone up in price by an average of around 5 percent since the beginning of the year. The list ends with the Tri-City, where the average price per square meter has gone up by only 3 percent.
It's more expensive, but “cheap”
Analysts have pointed out that despite very high increases in the prices of second-hand apartments in the Katowice Agglomeration (GMZ) and Łódź, they still remain among the cheapest cities among all metropolises. In their opinion, this is due to the fact that the offer still includes a high share of apartments in PRL blocks and old tenement houses.
Moreover, only in two metropolises – Warsaw and Krakow – the average price per square meter of apartments on the secondary market is higher than on the primary marketand two months earlier, Wrocław and the Tri-City were also in this group of cities. According to the authors of the report, in both metropolises, apartments on the primary market have become more expensive than on the secondary market – and this is where the change comes from. A similar phenomenon occurred in other metropolises. The exception was the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis, where this year the average price per square meter of second-hand apartments has increased more than that of new ones.
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