December brought a clear slowdown in Poland’s secondary housing market. Month on month, the supply of apartments shrank in all seven largest cities, while buyer activity declined—most notably in Warsaw, where the number of responses to listings fell by as much as 24.6% compared with November. Did developer promotions and discounts shift demand toward new homes? Preliminary data suggest that the developer market closed December with a record: across the analyzed cities, buyers purchased around 5,200 new units.
According to data from Otodom, the decline in supply on the secondary market is visible both month on month and year on year. The sharpest monthly drop was recorded in Kraków (-8.9%), while the largest year-on-year decline occurred in Wrocław (-29%). Katowice was the exception, with the number of listings up 3% compared with December 2024.
In December, across Poland’s seven largest cities—Warsaw, Wrocław, Katowice, Kraków, the Tricity (Gdańsk–Gdynia–Sopot), Łódź, and Poznań—Otodom listed 40,500 “second-hand” apartment offers. That represents a 15% year-on-year decrease and nearly a 7% drop compared with November 2025. At the same time, developers introduced more than 5,300 new units to the market, pushing the pool of new apartments in the analyzed cities back above 62,000. According to Otodom, this meant that in December buyers could have had up to 50% more choice in the developer market than on the secondary market.
“Developers’ broader listings may have encouraged some customers to consider purchasing a new unit, especially at year-end, when promotions and discounts flatten price differences and the choice between a new and a used apartment becomes less clear-cut. In addition, the developer market received an important reputational boost from the entry into force of price transparency regulations, including the obligation to disclose the history of price changes. This increased offer transparency and reduced uncertainty for customers, making price comparisons easier,” explains Agata Stachowiak, a housing market expert at Otodom.
New homes cool prices on the secondary market
According to the Property Buyers’ Sentiment Monitor, as recently as Q3 2025, 50% of people in the process of buying a home preferred the secondary market, while 23% opted for a developer unit. Whether this proportion changed in Q4 will be shown by the next edition of the report. Even now, however, it is clear that strong developer-side supply increased competition with the secondary market and supported the stabilization of asking prices for used apartments. In the background, households’ creditworthiness and interest in mortgage loans are also rising. Data from BIK show that in December 2025 the number of people applying for a housing loan increased by nearly 29% year on year.
Otodom data indicate that in December the spread in average asking prices between the largest markets remained significant. In Warsaw, the average price reached PLN 18,500 per square meter. Kraków and the Tricity followed closely, with prices—unchanged from the previous month—hovering around PLN 16,000 per square meter. In the Tricity, this represented a year-on-year increase of more than 4.9%. The lowest prices for used apartments were recorded in Łódź (PLN 8,700 per square meter) and Katowice (PLN 9,500). Wrocław stood out against the other markets as the only city to post a year-on-year decline (-1.7%), with an average asking price of PLN 13,300 per square meter in December.
Buyer activity declines
How did buyers respond? In December, the number of responses to listings on Otodom totaled 69,000. Month on month, buyer activity fell markedly—the steepest drop was recorded in Warsaw (-24.6% versus November 2025). On a year-on-year basis, however, the capital still posted an 11% increase. Other large monthly declines were seen in Łódź (-23.9%) and Kraków (-22.3%). The smallest month-on-month change occurred in the Tricity (-14.5%). At the same time, year-on-year buyer activity increased in nearly all analyzed cities, with Łódź as the only exception, where responses fell by 3% compared with December 2024.
“The December drop in buyer activity on the secondary market is not surprising—it’s a typical year-end effect, when some customers postpone purchase decisions until the following months. At the same time, the developer market surprised with the scale of sales. Many buyers, encouraged by the promotions and discounts that traditionally appear toward the end of the year for new apartments, finalized transactions to take advantage of attractive opportunities,” Agata Stachowiak concludes.
Source: ceo.com.pl
