Our little, dear M. The trend is slow but steady
The apartments that developers are introducing to the market are slowly “shrinking.” Five years ago, their surface area exceeded 53 square meters. Today, it is 51.9 square meters. The difference may seem small, but it is indicative of a certain trend.
“The average usable area of a newly delivered apartment was 90.2 square meters (in the first half of 2023 – 93.9 square meters). The average area of an apartment in single-family buildings was 131.9 square meters, while in multi-family buildings – 51.9 square meters,” the Central Statistical Office reported on Tuesday.
For comparison, a year ago it was 131.8 and 52 square meters, respectively. Over the last five years, the average area of new apartments has shrunk from 53.2 to 51.9 square meters, and of single-family houses — from 135.2 to 131.9 square meters.
Fewer apartments are coming to the market
In August, over 3.6 thousand new apartments were put on the market – about 750 fewer than in July this year and 800 more than in August 2023. In August, developers sold about 2.8 thousand apartments in the seven largest cities in Poland. A slight slowdown in prices is visible. Since July, they have increased slightly in the Tri-City and Wrocław, and decreased in Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań and Łódź, but in none of these cities did the change exceed 1 percent.
– A year ago, August was an exceptionally busy month for developers. The banks’ offer included the “Safe Credit 2%”, which triggered a real avalanche of demand for apartments. This year, the sales offices of development companies have clearly emptied out. It is no wonder that they have started to increase supply again – commented Marek Wielgo, an expert from the RynekPierwotny.pl portal.
It is also worth noting a certain pattern – in all cities where apartment sales fell in August (in Warsaw, Krakow, Lodz and the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis), developers delivered fewer apartments to the market than a month earlier. Conversely, in the Tri-City and Poznan, the increase in sales could have been the result of an increase in supply. Only Wroclaw broke this pattern, where more development agreements were concluded in August, despite the decrease in the number of apartments that appeared on sale.
