Warsaw has long been the main housing market in Poland. The city is also where foreigners are buying the largest number of dwellings (mieszkania). According to the Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs (Polskie Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych), from 2006 to 2010, foreigners bought housing with a total area of 950,000 sq m in Poland. This means that they own about 19,000 housing units in this country. This is as if they bought all the apartments that were delivered to the market by developers across Poland in the first half of 2011 (18,700). In practice, investment by foreigners in the Polish housing market may be even greater than suggested by official statistics, because the ministry’s data do not cover purchases of apartments from housing cooperatives. Nor do the data include transactions involving investment funds (fundusze inwestycyjne), which are responsible for a large part of the housing purchases made by foreigners in Poland.
What locations do foreigners choose the most often? Invariably, they continue to focus on large cities, showing a particular interest in Warsaw. The Warsaw market is the most liquid (najbardziej płynny), making it easy to buy, sell and rent an apartment. This is probably the reason why 42.5 percent of the housing purchased by foreigners is located in Mazovia province—most of it in Warsaw and vicinity (okolice, sąsiedztwo). Małopolska province is the runner-up (zdobywca drugiego miejsca). It accounts for 12 percent of the total area of housing bought by foreigners in Poland in the past five years.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, British buyers have purchased the most apartments in Poland since 2006. The total area of the premises they purchased during the last five years is almost 154,000 sq m. This is roughly 3,100 dwellings in all considering that the average size of a housing unit available for purchase today is 50 sq m. The Irish are second with 110,000 sq m of housing purchased, corresponding to more than 2,200 50-sq-m flats. A similar result was noted in the case of German buyers, who purchased 109,000 square meters of housing during the analyzed period.
The preferences of foreign buyers vary. Everything depends on the purpose for which they acquire the property. Today they usually buy housing in Poland for their own needs. In previous years, purchases for investment purposes were far more frequent. According to Lion’s House, for over a year now not many foreigners have been looking for real estate for investment purposes. When buying housing for themselves, they usually choose large properties in prime locations. The basic criterion is the prestige of the location and of the property itself. They buy both pre-owned and new housing. Due to their relatively poor familiarity with the market, foreigners often use the services of real estate agents.
Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)
