Biding their time

Problems with finance and contractors, poor designs and overpriced sites are some of the reasons why amateur developers are starting to sell their projects. Large operators, however, can sit back and wait for prices to fall Emil Górecki The days has gone when Polish developers made a profit out of every investment. A year ago you could still buy land at a decent distance from the city and sell it a month later at a considerable profit – and the profit was several time greater when homes had been built on it. Experts claim that the market has simply become normal. According to the Central Office of Statistics (GUS), the difference between the number of building permits issued in 2005 and the number of starts was 13,000, but this had risen to more than 50,000 in 2007. This is not to say that it no longer pays to develop. It is just more difficult to obtain loans, project management costs have spiralled and customers have become more demanding. This simply means that speculators