The owner-occupier residential market and the rental market are not in competition with each other

“The market has developed in a quintessentially “Polish” way: there are some people that have one, two, and – in some cases – even five apartments that they rent out, while there are foreign investors who, sensing a profitable opportunity, have been buying larger numbers of apartments in prestigious projects, such as in Złota 44. The government is also moving along these lines with its ‘Apartment Plus’ scheme for the less affluent and has targeted it towards younger people, who value flexibility and are looking for something more alternative. The scheme is set to run for the next few years – and I hope it will also be continued if the ruling party changes. Development land has been included in the scheme that had previously not been designated for residential purposes, but now is – and this could crowd some private developers out of the market. I hope all the players on the market can find an accommodation over this issue.
The owner-occupier residential market and the rental market are not in competition with each other. They exist side-by-side and are addressed to different groups with different needs – and so there is room for both markets to grow. But what we can see is that the apartment rental market is underdeveloped in comparison to the owner-occupier market, but both still need to speed up. If the markets balance out better, it will mean that we won’t be building just 170,000 or 200,000 apartments a year but 400,000. This balancing can’t be done if one segment dominates another – they have to grow alongside each other and coexist” adds Tadeusz Jachowicz.