Living on the crest of the wave

“We have been driving a super new car along a new motorway. The weather is beautiful, so nothing can go wrong,” is how Katarzyna Kuniewicz, a partner and head of the market research and analysis department at Reas, characterises the Polish residential market in 2016. In the last quarter of 2016, 18,100 homes were sold in the six largest markets in Poland (Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, the TriCity, Poznań and Łódź), i.e. 25 pct more than in the previous quarter. Over the entire year, 62,000 transactions were concluded, exceeding last year’s historic figures. “Interestingly, around two-thirds of the transactions were cash-based. The sales boom did not create a mortgage boom. This may confirm the development of a middle class in our country, which has the funds for such purposes,” comments Kazimierz Kirejczyk, the president of Reas. “Where do their funds come from? From various sources: increasingly better salaries, the withdrawal of deposits – w