The coming years are expected to see a significant increase in the number of housing units built by municipalities and social housing associations (TBS/SIM). For now, however, it’s worth taking a closer look at the data from the first quarter of 2025.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the expected rise in the number of affordable rental homes to be built primarily by local governments, Social Housing Associations (TBS), and Social Housing Initiatives (SIM). Of course, we must recognize that the promised increase in funding for social housing will only affect statistics on new project starts with some delay. It will take even longer—around two years—for these non-developer units to be completed. For now, it’s worth analyzing the latest GUS (Statistics Poland) data for Q1 2025 concerning this segment. This is exactly what experts from GetHome.pl have done.
New Project Starts: The Key Indicator?
At first glance, the most important metric for new cooperative, social, and municipal apartments appears to be the number of units started. This figure indicates how many homes will be available for rent in a relatively short time—after an average construction period of about two years.
However, the table below confirms that statistics on building permits granted are also crucial. GUS data show that in Q1 2025, the number of new social rental units started was lower than a year earlier (620 vs. 845 units). However, there was a marked increase in the number of units for which TBS and SIM received building permits (rising from 1,067 to 1,773). This change should soon translate into a higher number of social housing projects breaking ground.
A Revival in Municipal Housing
This increase in building permits should also lead to more frequent starts of new municipal housing projects. These units, which offer rents lower than social housing, already saw a nationwide increase in project starts in Q1 2025 (rising from 102 to 429 units). By contrast, the results for cooperative housing remain very modest.
When analyzing cooperative statistics, it’s important to remember that these figures refer only to apartments built by cooperatives exclusively for their members, not developer-style units for sale to the general public. It’s also worth noting the annual increase in the number of other rental units started from January to March (from 134 to 316 units). In the past, this category has sometimes included apartments with preferential rents.
The Next Quarters Could Be Very Interesting
Experts from GetHome.pl point out that, historically, statistics for social, cooperative, and municipal construction have shown considerable volatility. It cannot be assumed, therefore, that annual results will simply be proportional to quarterly ones. Upcoming data on the rental housing market should be interesting, as we are seeing increased activity on the permit side. In the next quarters, the impact of government-announced changes in financing may also become more visible.
Of course, it should be kept in mind that these figures still represent a small share of total construction activity. In the first three months of 2025, cooperative, municipal, and social investors received permits to build 3,174 apartments. This accounted for just 5% of the total quarterly result, which also includes permits for developer-built homes and private houses (with a total of 61,864 permits granted to all types of investors in Q1 2025).
Affordable Rentals Will Be Built in Only a Few Parts of the Country
The GetHome.pl experts also highlight an interesting map that shows where building permits for municipal and social (SIM/TBS) housing were issued in Q1 2025. This map confirms that social and municipal construction remains highly concentrated, with new permits issued mainly in just a handful of cities and counties. For example, in Q1 2025, almost half of all new permits for municipal and social apartments were accounted for by just two cities—Poznań and Żory.
Author: Andrzej Prajsnar, GetHome.pl expert
Source: ManagerPlus.pl
