It's getting more and more difficult to get a housing loan

Otodom analysts checked who and what kind of apartments can afford with increasingly restrictive credit conditions. Otodom evaluated how the creditworthiness determined by banks relates to the specific possibility of buying your own apartment. The analysts took into account three types of borrowers: A 28-year-old working single who earns PLN 7,000 net per month, a family of thirty with children with a total income of PLN 16,000 and a childless couple aged 35 and 37 with a joint income of PLN 12,000, assuming a credit period of 25 years, 20 percent of own contribution and no previous debts.

"The average amount for which a bank will currently grant a loan to a single person at the beginning of their career is PLN 361,375. However, you can see that it varies significantly depending on the offer of a given bank," Pawel Onych, Head of Mortgage at Otodom i obido, said.

This means that a person with such creditworthiness, looking for an apartment in Warsaw, can afford only 2 percent of the apartments currently available on the market. 

For a family with children and a household budget of PLN 16,000, the most advantageous would be to buy an apartment in Łódź, Poznań or Wrocław. In the capital city of Wielkopolska such a family can even afford a 6-room apartment of 160 sqm or a 5-room semi-detached house with a garden. Only two cities from the analyzed locations are above the national average when it comes to the choice of apartments for a childless couple with a total income of PLN 12,000. They will have the widest choice of offers in Łódź or Poznań.

"It is worth noting that in our simulation, we took into account borrowers earning significantly above the national average. However, they do not currently have an easy situation when planning to buy an apartment. The results of the analysis of credit possibilities showed that the income at the level of PLN 6,000-7,000 per person, especially in Warsaw, means a rather limited choice of apartments, and all those earning less can only rent," Marta Buzalska, an expert at Otodom, stressed.

(WBJ)