Luxury apartments not only in the capital. A surprising market leader

Warsaw is the largest development market in Poland and also a place that is most associated with housing luxury. But what does the share of premises at least twice as high as the average in other markets look like?

The capital’s relationship with the offer for the wealthiest seems obvious. However, people who know the Polish housing market will also pay attention to the Tri -City, which has recently chased away Krakow in terms of new apartments. What about other large cities? Experts of the RynekPierwotny.pl portal decided to check it. However, before we look at the data, it is worth asking yourself: what does “a luxurious development apartment” mean?

Developer luxury, or what?

As experts note, the definition of housing luxury is certainly not unambiguous.

Analysts from the RynekPierwotny.pl portal for the needs of their study assumed that “as luxurious, a new apartment with a 1 sq m price is classified at least twice as high as the market average from a given month.”

We are not talking about a rigid area limit – a luxury apartment does not have to have 100 sq m. and more. Increasingly, high prices also apply to offers addressed to smaller families or singles.

Poznań is the leader of developer luxury?

Prepared by experts from the RynekPierwotny.pl portal, the following chart, based on the Big Data Rynekpierwotny.pl data, shows how from January 2022 to May 2025 the offer of new apartments with a price of 1 sq m changed at least twice as high as the local average (in 10 large markets).

Summary of information from the chart indicates that this participation of the most expensive apartments in the entire offer of developers looked as follows:

• Bydgoszcz – 0.00 percent (result from the Kwiecień -MAJ 2025 period) / 0.01 percent (average result from the entire period from January 2022 to May 2025),

• Gdańsk – 0.66 percent / 1.22 percent,

• Katowice – 0.00 percent / 0.04 percent,

• Krakow – 0.55 percent / 0.52 percent,

• Lublin – 0.00 percent / 0.10 percent,

• Łódź – 0.00 percent / 0.97 percent,

• Poznań – 0.59 percent / 0.87 percent,

• Szczecin – 0.16 percent / 0.12 percent,

• Warsaw – 1.12 percent / 0.98 percent,

• Wrocław – 0.12 percent / 0.80 percent

– Big Data RynekPierwotny.pl confirms that cities such as Łódź, Poznań and Gdańsk were at least temporarily characterized by a much larger share of expensive for local apartments than Warsaw. The example of Poznań looks particularly interesting, where at some point (summer 2023) over 170 developer premises at very high prices appeared on the market at the time Poznań was the undisputed leader in terms of the percentage of “M” costing for 1 sq m min. 200 percent Medium – says Andrzej Prajsnar, expert on the RynekPierwotny.pl portal.

As he notes, the increase in the share of offering very expensive development apartments (including in Łódź, Poznań, Wrocław and Gdańsk) fell on the second half of 2023, when cheaper premises were sold quickly due to the BK 2 percent program.

– This effect has further increased the percentage of the most expensive offers. In the case of Warsaw, the analyzed indicator jumped a year ago, when the number of “ultra -like” offers more than doubled. The beginning of this year, in turn, brought an increase in the importance of sales of cheaper “M” – not only in the capital – notes Prajsnar.

Where is the developer luxury really selling?

In the sales analysis of the most expensive development apartments, it is worth looking at the participation of premises, the price for a square meter of which is at least 200 percent. market average. Such apartments represent the luxury segment in the most literal approach – both in terms of price and prestige. The entire examined period was taken into account, covering the time from January 2022 to May 2025.

The average result from this time interval was as follows:

• Bydgoszcz – 0.01 percent all the sale of new apartments,

• Gdańsk – 1.07 percent,

• Katowice – 0.09 percent,

• Krakow – 0.43 percent,

• Lublin – 0.02 percent,

• Łódź – 0.23 percent,

• Poznań – 0.27 percent,

• Szczecin – 0.17 percent,

• Warsaw – 0.56 percent,

• Wrocław – 0.47 percent all the sale of new apartments.

– If someone expected Warsaw to achieve the highest result, they may feel surprised. As you can see, Gdańsk is a definite leader, who overtook Kraków and Wrocław. In April and May this year, luxury development apartments from Gdańsk accounted for as much as 3 percent. all Gdańsk sales of new premises – notes Andrzej Prajsnar.

He indicates that in the case of Gdańsk we are not talking about the sale of such the most expensive apartments, which from a Warsaw perspective could seem quite cheap.

– Let us remind you that the analysis criterion is the offer price of 1 sq m at a level of at least 200 percent. market market. Thus, Gdańsk luxury apartments, which in April and May this year. generated 3 percent sales, had to cost at least PLN 35,000/sq m at the offer of developers – he sums up.