Housing construction in 2019 – statistics

As always at the turn of the year, we sum up what happened in the previous year in every area of our lives. The housing market is no different. Statistics Poland (GUS) has just published statistics on housing construction in Poland in 2019. The conclusions drawn from the published data are quite surprising to many. Why? If you are planning to buy a flat in Katowice or elsewhere in Silesia, it is worth taking a closer look.

Record-breaking figures

The market is forecast to slow down gradually and the boom of recent years to start fading. However, it turns out that for the primary market in our country this was an exceptional, record-breaking year in many respects. The first record figures concern the number of housing projects started. The total number of construction starts amounts to more than 237 thousand units, of which 142 thousand are developers' units. This is not only higher than last year, but the best in history! Building permits also show significantly better results than a year earlier. 268.5 thousand permits were issued, of which 167 thousand went to developers – another record. And that is still not the end of these impressive statistics. There is also a record in the number of completed units. Construction was completed on 207 thousand units, of which 131 thousand were developers' units (a result almost 17% higher than a year earlier!). The figures for just the last month of the year, December 2019, are also incredible. Developers completed 14.6 thousand units in December, and altogether there were almost 23 thousand, which is the highest result for a single month in history.

What does it mean?

At first glance, it may of course seem that the market is growing at lightning speed. But do these statistics really mean that? What is behind such high results, especially for developers? It turns out that these statistics may confirm our earlier predictions, which you can find on our blog. Admittedly, the primary market is still in excellent shape, but such figures often appear in the final stages of a period of growth. According to experts, despite such record figures, it is hard to predict what the market will look like in 2020, and they are rather cautious about making optimistic claims of further records. The results can also be misleading because, for example, the number of flats completed last year does not result solely from what happened on the market last year, but also from earlier years – completing a housing project is generally not a matter of a single year. The number of building permits received shows, however, that investors are nevertheless very optimistic about the coming years. What will come of it? We will find out in 2020 and the following years.

What will happen on the primary market is very hard to predict and, paradoxically, optimistic statistics do not help. However, it seems that even if the boom slows down, the market will still be in very good shape and there will be a great many housing transactions in our country.