Real estate prices. The first month like this this year

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July was the second month in a row of a decline in the average price per square meter of apartments on the secondary market in Warsaw. It was also cheaper in the cities of the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis. In the other largest cities, the prices of used apartments maintained the level from the previous month – according to data from the GetHome.pl portal.

– For the first time this year, the average price per square meter of apartments available on the secondary market did not increase in any of the largest cities. The last time we saw such a situation was in December 2022, i.e. during a deep slump on the mortgage market – says Marek Wielgo, expert at GetHome.

More apartments, fewer buyers

Just like then, the stabilization of prices was preceded by a large increase in the number of apartments available for sale. Data from the Unirepo.pl website, which monitors the 52 largest advertising portals, show that in the whole of 2022 it increased by 28%, which is the same as in the seven months of this year. At the end of July this year, there were about 157 thousand unique offers for sale of apartments posted throughout the country. Since December last year, their number has increased by almost 28%. This shows that there were more apartments that sellers introduced to the market than people willing to buy them.

After the sales slump in January, the market has not yet returned to the best third quarter of last year in this respect. The database of unique offers shrank by 36.3 thousand apartments per month during this period. According to Unirepo.pl, 34.5 thousand offers were withdrawn from the secondary market in July.

More second-hand apartments

It is worth noting that there were over one fifth more than a month earlier. Could this indicate an increase in demand for second-hand apartments? It is difficult to state this unequivocally, because sellers could have simply withdrawn some of the apartments due to a lack of buyers. On the other hand, the number of apartments put up for sale increased significantly in July. And importantly, in July the choice of apartments on the secondary market increased in most of the largest cities (the exception was Katowice). The largest number of offers were in Warsaw (17.4 thousand), Wrocław (9.4 thousand) and Kraków (9.4 thousand).

This year, the number of apartments available in the offer of developer companies has also increased. Some of them even decide to promotionally reduce prices. As a result, sellers of used apartments have also started to lower their tone. According to GetHome.pl data, the first symptoms of stabilization of the average price per square meter appeared in May. However, it is only on the basis of data from July that we can state that stabilization has already come to all metropolises. The average price per square meter has not changed for the third month in a row in Krakow (PLN 17.7 thousand/sq m) and Tricity (PLN 15.3 thousand/sq m) and for two months in Łódź (PLN 8.7 thousand/sq m). It also slowed down in Wrocław (PLN 14.1 thousand/sq m) and Poznań (PLN 11.7 thousand/sq m). A drop in apartment prices per square meter, by as much as 2 percent, occurred in Warsaw (PLN 18.3 thousand/sq m) and in the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis (PLN 8.4 thousand/sq m).

In two cities, prices on the secondary market are higher than on the primary market

Summing up the seven months of 2024, the greatest price dynamics took place in the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis, where a square meter of a second-hand apartment increased by as much as 8%. Second and third place went to Łódź and Kraków, where prices have increased by 7% and 6%, respectively, since the beginning of the year. Warsaw and Wrocław recorded a change of around 5%. The smallest increase in the average price per square meter of apartments on the secondary market was noted by GetHome.pl analysts in the Tri-City (+1%) and Poznań (+3%).

Finally, it is also worth noting that in only two metropolises, not four – Warsaw and Krakow – the average price per square meter of apartments on the secondary market is higher than on the primary market. Just a month earlier, Wrocław and the Tri-City were also in this group of cities. However, in both metropolises, apartments on the primary market have become more expensive than on the secondary market, hence the change.

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