October in residential construction – the number of investments increases

The latest data from the Central Statistical Office of Poland (GUS) show high activity in the housing market, in terms of both investments initiated by developers and individual construction.

October, based on this year’s data, proved to be the month with the highest number of new constructions in the developer sector. What’s more, the figure of 15.9 thousand new flats under construction is the fourth-best result for a single month in the history of the Central Statistical Office’s surveys.

Newly started investments

– This might be surprising given that for several months now, there’s been talk of a record offer of flats available at developers’ offices, which could induce a scaling down of investment plans, especially in a period of high interest rates constituting a demand barrier for many potential buyers – comments Patryk Kozierkiewicz, a legal counsel in the Polish Association of Developer Companies. He adds: – We assess the result as rather a positive deviation from the norm. Assuming the current economic situation continues, in the coming months we should observe a match in the number of new investments to the prevailing average demand. This means that the average number of monthly launches will stabilize at lower levels, and the whole of 2025 will be weaker in this respect than the current year.

Building permits

This year’s statistics regarding newly obtained building permits are characterized by very high stability. Decisions made in October allow investors to build 16.3 thousand flats, with a monthly average for this year being 17 thousand.

Forecasting the result for the whole of 2024, developers should receive permission to build about 200 thousand new flats in total. – This result may be optimistic, as a positive end to the administrative procedure is a milestone for the success of the entire investment. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the permits will be used immediately, as it will depend on factors like the possibility of financing or current economic and market conditions – believes Patryk Kozierkiewicz.

Occupancy permits

In October, developers handed over 10.3 thousand new flats for use, while individual builders completed 6 thousand houses. The result in the developer sector for the aggregated first ten months is 10% worse than in the corresponding period last year, which is a natural consequence of the low number of investments started in 2022-2023.