Land prices. Will they outpace inflation or stop it? Expert commentary
The prices of building land are constantly rising. In the first quarter of 2024, we recorded increases in all major cities, from 3.7% in Olsztyn to almost 5% in Wrocław.
The latter value is really high, because it is more or less the forecast consumer inflation rate for this year. This certainly indicates the growing interest of Poles in building single-family houses. And expensive apartments mean that future investors are increasingly turning their attention to houses at the price of an apartment. After all, buildings with an area of 70 m2 – 90m2 They are ideal for a couple or a family with one child, and this model is becoming more and more common in our country.
Wojciech Rynkowski, an expert at Extradom.pl, notes that the first quarter of 2024 saw an interesting change in the construction plot market. For most of last year, Łódź dominated in terms of price increases, but Gdańsk is currently leading the way. In the capital of Pomerania, construction land prices rose by 16.8% year-on-year and by 4.7% quarter-on-quarter. However, this significant increase should not come as a surprise. It was in the Tri-City that the largest increase in apartment prices was recorded in 2023, reaching 27%. It is also worth paying attention to Wrocław, where prices rose the fastest in the last quarter, by almost 5.0%.
In the coming quarters, I expect a further increase in the prices of plots, which will definitely exceed the level of inflation in the given period. Forecasts for the real estate market indicate that in large cities, apartments may increase in price by about 20 percent this year, therefore I expect a similar, although slightly lower increase in the prices of building plots. This results from the fact that more and more people decide to build their own house using the economic method or have it built from prefabricated elements.
Prefabricated houses on the wave
The uncertain future of the #naStart home program and very high prices of apartments per square meter mean that more and more people decide to take matters into their own hands and start building their own home. Manufacturers of prefabricated houses have also sensed the market situation. The offer of small houses with an area of 80 m2 up to 100m2 grows systematically from quarter to quarter.
Such buildings require small plots of land with an area of 600-1000 m², which are still quite easy to acquire at attractive prices – even near large agglomerations. The interest in small plots naturally causes their price to increase per square meter, similarly to the case of apartment prices, where the most expensive in relation to usable area are studio apartments.