Developers launch sales of the highest number of apartments since 2007

Developers launched sales of nearly 15,000 new apartments in Q2 in Poland’s six biggest cities, the highest number since Q4 of 2007, according to a report by residential real estate consultancy REAS. The number of new apartments introduced to developers’ sales offer has been increasing for the past four quarters. The number of units sold slightly fell in the second quarter compared to Q1 2014, but remained at per-crisis levels. “Very strong sales over the last three quarters, since Q3 2013, encouraged developers to launch several new investments in Q2 2014,” the report reads. Consequently the total number of apartments on offer in the six largest cities started to increase, for the first time since Q1 2012, and reached 44,000 units. REAS analysts were critical of the influence of the government “Apartments for the Youth” program (MdM), which subsidizes apartment costs for people under 35. “Noteworthy, the good sales results are to a certain degree correlated with the launch of the MdM program. Unfortunately, taxpayer money is once again used to make the market’s cyclical amplitudes bigger,” REAS analysts wrote. They also added that average apartment prices will be largely shaped by the price limits set by the MdM program. “If sales remain at similar levels in the second half of the year as in H1 2014, the number of transactions will be the highest in Poland’s post-transformation history. The total sales value will however fall short of the figures seen in 2007, because clients are now buying significantly smaller and cheaper apartments than they did during the residential boom,” REAS analysts concluded.