Despite a strong cultural preference for homeownership in Poland, many people are still unable to afford to buy a home. The “Safe Credit 2%” program, introduced last year, further drove up property prices. Despite over a million homes being built in the last decade, demand continues to outstrip supply. Additionally, there is a lack of comprehensive studies showing the true scale of the housing shortage. According to Adam Czerniak from Polityka Insight, solving housing problems requires complex actions at various levels and targeting different groups in the market.
“Research shows that 10 and 20 years ago, over 80% of Poles wanted to live in their own homes, while only 2-4%—a statistically insignificant margin—preferred renting. The rest were ambivalent,” says Dr. Adam Czerniak, professor at the Warsaw School of Economics and Director of Research at Polityka Insight. “This percentage has remained essentially unchanged over the last 10-20 years. The share of those who would prefer to rent, or at least those who are not staunch supporters of homeownership, is higher among younger people aged 25-34. However, as they grow older, start families, and have children, their preferences change, and they increasingly decide to buy a home.”
According to the Central Statistical Office, during the 2021 census, out of nearly 13.5 million housing units with established ownership, 76.3% belonged to individuals. Another 13.4% were owned within housing cooperatives. According to a 2023 survey by ARC Rynek i Opinia for Habitat for Humanity Poland, 27% of Poles identified the lack of housing or poor housing conditions as one of their biggest problems. The survey shows that the housing situation for people living in Poland has not improved and this applies to both Poles and Ukrainians. Over the last two years, 23% of Poles reported a deterioration in their housing situation, more than twice the percentage of those who reported an improvement.
“In Poland, we lack good data or studies showing how many homes are missing. Most statistics are based on estimates at the national level. We count how many households we have, how many residential properties we have, compare these two numbers, and then show how many homes are missing,” explains Dr. Adam Czerniak. “However, to properly estimate the housing shortfall, we need to know where homes are missing—usually in large cities—what types of homes are needed, because a studio apartment in Gliwice won’t meet the needs of a three-person family from the Tri-City, and at what price these residential properties are available. Only when we take these three parameters into account—location, size, and cost of living in the property—can we estimate how many homes are actually missing in Poland, and such studies have not been conducted.”
Despite over a million homes being built in Poland in the last decade, the housing situation has not significantly improved.
“The vast majority of newly built homes went to people who already owned property, often second homes, vacation apartments in the mountains or by the sea,” explains the SGH professor. “This is reflected in the rent gap indicator—the percentage of households in the rent gap is currently around 35%, compared to 40% a decade ago. The situation of these households has only improved because some households, especially older ones, have decreased in size.”
The Habitat for Humanity report shows that over 25% of Poles believe they are in the “rent gap”—earning too little to meet their housing needs on the commercial market, whether by buying or renting a home, but too much to qualify for government support in the form of public or social housing. According to Eurostat data cited in the report, people living in Poland spend an average of nearly 18% of their income on housing costs. 24% of Poles and 47% of Ukrainians spend more than 40% of their income on housing.
“Solving Poland’s housing problems requires very comprehensive and diverse actions at many levels. We need to care for people with very low incomes, who cannot meet their housing needs on their own, by providing social rental housing. We need to address those who fall into the rent gap—separate programs must be tailored to them,” says the Director of Research at Polityka Insight. “We also need to address the supply of typical commercial housing so that it quickly responds to price changes—so that when there is a demand boom, supply keeps up with the increase in demand, and also to make the secondary market more flexible, so that people with two or three properties are more willing to sell them when prices rise, to those currently seeking housing.”
The expert emphasizes that the government’s previous housing policies were focused on easily understandable, quick-to-implement, and often ineffective programs. The epitome of poor housing policy was the introduction of the “Safe Credit 2%” program, as it was launched during a period of very low housing supply. Additionally, it was introduced very quickly, so neither buyers nor sellers were able to prepare. Furthermore, there was only a six-month window to apply, and the number of people who could benefit from the program was very large due to the lack of restrictions. This caused a surge in demand in most Polish cities, leading to rapid price increases.
“In 2023, Poland became the country with the fastest-rising housing prices in the entire European Union, primarily due to the Safe Credit 2% program,” emphasizes Dr. Adam Czerniak.
According to a report by the National Bank of Poland, in the first quarter of 2024, primary market housing prices in Warsaw jumped by over 24% year-on-year, and in the next six cities (Gdańsk, Gdynia, Kraków, Łódź, Poznań, Wrocław) by nearly 10%. On the secondary market, the increase was less severe in the capital (10%), while in other large cities, it exceeded 15%. Residents of Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Katowice, Kielce, Lublin, Olsztyn, Opole, Rzeszów, Szczecin, and Zielona Góra faced a similarly challenging situation. On average, in this group of cities, new housing prices jumped by over 17.5%, and second-hand units by nearly 14.5%. According to Eurostat, house prices in Poland grew faster than in any other EU country—from Q1 2023 to Q1 2024, they increased by 18%. During this time, double-digit price increases were also seen only in Bulgaria (16%). Even after the program was suspended, prices continued to rise rapidly, up 4.3% from Q4 2023, placing Poland third after Bulgaria and Hungary.
“The newly proposed solutions by the government, such as the Ministry of Development and Technology’s proposed credit subsidy program, are somewhat better thought out and come with many more restrictions, so the effects should not be as drastic as they were with the Safe Credit 2% program,” assesses Dr. Adam Czerniak. “However, it is crucial that the credit subsidy program is not the only program this government has to offer. There must be other ideas alongside it, including for the development of social rental housing, increasing supply flexibility, reforming housing allowances, and ensuring that the spatial planning reform, which will soon come into effect, is effective and does not limit the construction of new buildings, especially in large cities.”
