July was the second consecutive month of falling average prices per square meter of apartments on the secondary market in Warsaw. It was also cheaper in the cities of the Upper Silesian-Dąbrowa Metropolis. Meanwhile, in the other largest cities, prices of used apartments were maintained at the level from the previous month – this is shown by 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 has not increased in any of the largest cities. The last time we saw such a situation was in December 2022, during a deep slump of the mortgage market,” says Marek Wielgo, an expert from GetHome.pl.
Similar to then, a significant increase in the number of apartments available preceded the price stabilization. Data from the Unirepo.pl service, which monitors 52 of the largest advertising portals, shows that their number increased by 28% throughout 2022, the same rate as in the first seven months of this year. At the end of July, there were approximately 157,000 unique apartment sale offers posted across the country. Their number has increased by nearly 28% since last December. This indicates that there were more apartments offered for sale than buyers interested in them.
After a slump in sales in January, the market still has not returned to the best quarter of last year. The database of unique offers decreased by 36.3 thousand apartments per month. According to Unirepo.pl, 34.5 thousand offers were withdrawn from the secondary market in July.
It’s worth noting that there were over a fifth more of them than a month earlier. Could this indicate an increase in demand for second-hand apartments? This is difficult to determine unambiguously, as some premises could be withdrawn by sellers due to a lack of interest. On the other hand, the number of apartments offered for sale clearly increased in July. Importantly, in July, the choice of apartments on the secondary market increased in most of the largest cities (except Katowice). The most offers were in Warsaw (17.4 thousand), Wrocław (9.4 thousand) and Krakow (9.4 thousand).
This year the number of apartments available from development companies has also increased. Some of them even decide to offer promotional price reductions. As a result, second-hand apartment sellers also started to lower their prices. According to GetHome.pl, the first symptoms of a stabilization in average price per square meter appeared in May. However, only based on July’s data can we state that the stabilization has reached all metropolises. The average price per square meter has not changed for the third month in a row in Krakow (PLN 17.7k/sq. m) and in the Tri-City (PLN 15.3k/sq. m), and for two months in Lodz (PLN 8.7k/sq. m). In addition, it slowed down in Wrocław (PLN 14.1k/sq. m) and Poznań (PLN 11.7k/sq. m). The decrease in apartment prices per square meter, by as much as 2%, took place in Warsaw (PLN 18.3k/sq. m) and in the Upper Silesian-Dąbrowa Metropolis (PLN 8.4k/sq. m.)
Summing up the seven months of 2024, the greatest price dynamics took place in the Upper Silesian-Dąbrowa Metropolis, where the price per square meter of a second-hand apartment increased by a whopping 8%. Lodz and Krakow came in second and third, with prices increasing by 7% and 6% respectively since the beginning of the year. Warsaw and Wroclaw recorded a change of around 5%. The smallest increase in the average price per square meter of second-hand apartments was noted by GetHome.pl analysts in the Tri-City (+1%) and Poznań (+3%).
Despite very high price increases for second-hand apartments in the Katowice Agglomeration and Lodz, they remain one of the cheapest cities among all metropolises. This is because the offer still includes a large proportion of apartments in blocks from the PRL times and old tenement houses.
Finally, it’s worth noting that in only two metropolises – Warsaw and Krakow – the average price per square meter of apartments on the secondary market is higher than on the primary market. A month earlier, this group also included Wroclaw and the Tri-City. However, in both cities, apartments on the primary market soared more than on the secondary one, hence this change.
Source: https://managerplus.pl/czy-to-juz-koniec-hossy-na-rynku-nieruchomosci-ceny-mieszkan-z-rynku-wtornego-lipiec-2024
