The opening months of 2026 brought a clear rebound in housing demand, a record surge in mortgage interest and a striking contrast between the shrinking supply of new developer-built apartments and the slowly improving availability of second-hand homes. According to Otodom experts, the market in recent months has been active but not yet overheated. Buyers were making decisions in an environment shaped by geopolitical uncertainty and increasingly uneven price trends across major cities.
Mortgage lending surges amid uncertainty
As Waldemar Rogowski, Chief Analyst at the BIK Group and Director of the Institute of Corporate Finance and Investment at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, points out, the first quarter of 2026 brought exceptionally strong growth in the mortgage market. The scale of the trend is reflected in the number of applicants: 144,000 people applied for home loans during the quarter, up 47% year on year and as much as 83% compared with 2024. Estimates suggest that around 70,000 mortgages were granted over the three-month period, with a combined value of PLN 31 billion. More than half of that amount, 56%, was concentrated in the seven largest metropolitan areas.
This record demand, with the average requested loan amount reaching an all-time high of PLN 506,000, was driven mainly by the continuation of the National Bank of Poland’s interest-rate cuts, which brought the reference rate down to 3.75% in March, as well as strong wage growth of 8% to 10% year on year. At the same time, buyers were also pushed into quicker decisions by geopolitical tensions linked to the conflict in the Middle East and rising commodity prices. Fears of higher inflation and a possible return to rate hikes also translated into a high share of mortgage refinancing in the first quarter, accounting for around 30% in volume terms and 25% by value. Of newly granted loans used to purchase property, 45% went to the secondary market and 40% to the primary market.
Developers cut back on new launches
The supply side of the developer market painted a very different picture. Otodom data shows that developers remained cautious in the first three months of the year. Only 8,800 apartments were launched for sale across the seven main markets, the weakest quarterly result in three years. That represented a 23% drop quarter on quarter and a 29% decline year on year.
The sharpest falls in the number of newly introduced units compared with the first quarter of 2025 were recorded in Wrocław and Katowice, down 48% and 44% respectively. Łódź followed with a 35% decline, while Poznań saw a 33% drop. In Warsaw, the number of new homes entering the market fell by 24%, and in Kraków by 19%. Developers in the Tri-City area reduced new supply the least, by 11%.
At the same time, sales remained strong. In the first quarter of 2026, developers sold 12,700 apartments. This was 6% less than in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to preliminary data, but still 31% more than a year earlier. Since demand exceeded new supply for the second consecutive quarter, the total developer offer shrank for the first time in nine quarters. By the end of March, the number of apartments still available in developer portfolios had fallen to 58,900, down 5% compared with the end of 2025.
As Katarzyna Kuniewicz, Head of Research at Otodom, notes, the surprisingly strong sales result in March was not enough to match the very high level recorded in the first quarter of 2025. Even so, it improved sentiment on both sides of the developer market. Combined with the falling stock of available units, this has made forecasts for the residential market in Poland’s largest cities more optimistic than they were just a quarter earlier.
The secondary market begins to recover
Conditions looked different in the resale segment, which entered a phase of moderate revival. Supply grew gradually, and by the end of the quarter the pool of active listings across the seven largest markets had reached 41,600, up 3% compared with January.
Since the start of the year, the biggest increase in second-hand listings was seen in the Tri-City area and Poznań, both up 6%, followed by Warsaw, where supply rose by 4%. Growth was somewhat slower in Łódź and Wrocław, both at 3%, and in Kraków, where the increase reached 2%. Katowice was the only city to record a slight decline in secondary-market supply, down 1%.
Demand, however, varied significantly from city to city on a yearly basis. Poznań and Wrocław were the clear leaders in buyer interest, with the number of enquiries rising by 16% and 11% respectively. By contrast, Kraków and Katowice recorded year-on-year declines in demand, by 5% and 4%.
Paweł Jarząbek, Market Research and Analysis Manager at Otodom, says that the stronger activity in this segment also reflects growing concerns about the future. According to a March 2026 Otodom and Kantar survey, 59% of respondents expect housing prices to keep rising, while among the most active property seekers the share reaches 62%. Combined with weakening macroeconomic indicators, such as rising CPI inflation and a higher WIBOR 6M rate, these expectations encouraged buyers to close transactions more quickly.
Prices move in opposite directions
A comparison of the two market segments highlights clear differences in price dynamics. According to Otodom, average asking prices for new developer apartments rose by 1.6% in the first quarter compared with the previous quarter. On an annual basis, the increase reached 6.4%, nearly twice the current inflation rate. The strongest rise was recorded in the Tri-City area, where asking prices for new homes jumped by as much as 18% year on year.
In contrast, prices in the secondary market remained broadly stable throughout the quarter. The average annual increase was around 2%, below the inflation rate, which effectively points to real stabilisation and even a slight correction in property values. There were, of course, exceptions. In the Tri-City area, resale prices rose by 5.2% year on year, while in Poznań they were up 4.9%. At the other end of the spectrum were Wrocław, with a minimal increase of 0.3%, and Łódź and Katowice, where price growth was close to zero.
What lies ahead in the second quarter?
Despite geopolitical turbulence, the outlook for the coming months remains relatively positive. The favourable trend is expected to continue in the second quarter of 2026. As Waldemar Rogowski emphasizes, the key factors shaping mortgage affordability, namely a supportive cost of money in the form of stable interest rates and rising real household incomes, should continue to underpin strong buyer activity.
Mortgage availability remains at a healthy level, which is likely to support optimistic sentiment among both buyers and sellers, not only in the market for newly built apartments but also in the resale segment.
