The paradox of Poland’s housing market is that despite falling interest rates and cheaper mortgages, the time needed to sell a flat has lengthened. For thousands of families planning to move to a larger home, this creates both logistical and financial challenges. The latest data from Metrohouse and Credipass shows that in the fourth quarter of 2025, finding a buyer could take as long as 145 days. And selling the “old flat” is often a crucial step in financing the purchase of a larger property.
Although, after years of high inflation and expensive borrowing, we have finally seen the long-awaited cycle of interest rate cuts, the reality for people selling flats has in fact become more difficult. The latest analyses from Metrohouse and Credipass leave little room for doubt: buyers have stopped rushing. The time needed to find a buyer and complete a transaction has increased markedly, turning the selling process into one that requires a significant commitment of time.
How long does it take to sell a flat?
The era of flats selling “off the shelf,” familiar from the days of the Safe Mortgage 2% programme, is gone for good. According to the Metrohouse real estate agency network, the process in Warsaw resembled a sine wave — the time needed to sell on the secondary market first fell and then increased significantly. While in the second quarter of 2025 the average selling time in the capital still stood at an optimistic 92 days, the end of the year brought a sharp rise: in the fourth quarter, the listing period in Warsaw lengthened to 132 days. This means that the average Warsaw seller now waits 40 days longer to sign the final contract than just a few months earlier. The annual average for the capital came to 111 days, which was still a better result than in the rest of the country.
| Q1 2025 | Q2 2025 | Q3 2025 | Q4 2025 | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warsaw | 116 | 92 | 104 | 132 | 111 |
| 5 largest cities | 142 | 135 | 103 | 109 | 122 |
| Other locations | 145 | 138 | 105 | 145 | 133 |
Average selling time for flats on the secondary market, in days. Source: Metrohouse and Credipass Barometer.
According to data from the Metrohouse and Credipass Barometer report, owners of flats in other large urban areas face even greater challenges. In the group of Poland’s five largest cities — Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, Poznań and Gdańsk — the average selling time in 2025 stood at 122 days. The most difficult period was the beginning of the year, when the first-quarter statistics pointed to as many as 142 days of waiting for a buyer. Although there was a temporary acceleration in the middle of the year, the final quarter of 2025 again brought a cooling in sentiment. The least optimistic figures come from smaller locations, where selling a flat took an average of 133 days, and during slower periods such as the first and fourth quarters of 2025, the waiting time approached 145 days.
For someone who wants to swap a studio flat for a house or a four-room apartment, every extra month spent waiting for a buyer brings risk. Developers rarely agree to reserve a property for six months, yet that is roughly how much time now needs to be set aside to safely complete a sale — from posting the listing to signing the notarial deed.
The longer selling time is therefore forcing such buyers to change their financial strategy. For many people, this means having to reorganise the entire process of “trading up” to a new home. “This is no longer a simple sell-and-buy operation, but a process that requires a precise plan. Why? In practice, many buyers finance their new home with proceeds from the sale of their existing property. The money from selling the old flat often serves as the down payment for a mortgage on the new one. In current conditions, the entire undertaking needs to be planned very carefully. A major mistake is signing a preliminary agreement to purchase a new home with a short payment deadline while assuming that the current property will sell quickly,” warns Credipass analyst Paweł Rudzik.
Falling interest rates are not leading to quick decisions
When analysing the reasons behind this situation, it is impossible to ignore the impact of monetary policy. The year 2025 brought the expected relief for borrowers — interest rates fell steadily, significantly affecting the market. In theory, cheaper mortgages should act as fuel for demand. “In practice, however, this mechanism has worked in a non-linear way. Falling interest rates have indeed improved Poles’ creditworthiness, but at the same time they have removed the sense of urgency. Buyers in 2025 are an exceptionally informed group. Seeing price stabilisation and a growing supply of homes, they have stopped making impulse decisions. If mortgages are becoming cheaper and more properties are appearing on the market, buyers are allowing themselves more time for viewings and for comparing the quality of available homes,” comments Marcin Jańczuk, an expert at Metrohouse.
Another factor extending the selling time is strong competition and a change in the buyer profile. The market is now dominated mainly by end-users, for whom choosing a home is a life decision. Such buyers are more demanding. Sellers who have failed to adjust their expectations to the new reality, in which it is the buyer who sets the terms, must reckon with the fact that their property may end up contributing to record-long listing times.
“Today, selling property is a process that requires from the owner not only price flexibility, but above all patience. Metrohouse data clearly shows that regardless of whether we are selling a flat in Warsaw or in a smaller city, we need to reserve at least four months in our calendar to find a buyer. In current market conditions, falling interest rates are merely support for the buyer’s finances, not a guarantee of a quick sale for the owner. This is the lesson that the 2025 market has verified in a rather brutal way — those who win are the ones who plan their sale well in advance and carefully analyse transaction-time data,” says Marcin Jańczuk of Metrohouse.
