Monday, 5 October 2026
Warsaw’s residential market is becoming increasingly fragmented, with prices at the upper end rising much faster than those for more conventional housing. Recent market data suggest that the gap is being driven both by demand for high-quality property and by a growing number of exceptionally expensive developments entering the capital’s new-build market.
Data from BIG DATA RynekPierwotny.pl indicate that average asking prices in Warsaw’s premium segment have risen by about 37% over the past two years, from roughly PLN 31,000 to PLN 42,000 per sqm. Mainstream new housing has seen little comparable movement, remaining around PLN 17,000 per sqm.
The divergence remained visible during the summer. In August, the median asking price for higher-standard new housing reached approximately PLN 25,000 per sqm, around 14% above the PLN 21,900 recorded a year earlier. Price movements across the wider Warsaw development market were considerably smaller.
Part of the difference reflects the changing structure of supply rather than pure appreciation of existing properties. Warsaw developers have introduced more schemes at the highest price points, including homes offered above PLN 50,000 per sqm. Their growing presence is pulling premium indicators higher and can also influence the average price reported for the capital as a whole.
This makes the traditional city-wide average increasingly difficult to interpret. Earlier this year, Warsaw’s average new-build asking price reached around PLN 20,000 per sqm while the median remained closer to PLN 17,600. The difference illustrates the impact that a relatively small concentration of expensive developments can have on headline statistics.
Radosław Jodko, investment expert at RRJ Group, believes buyers at the upper end remain exposed to economic cycles but tend to respond differently from purchasers whose affordability depends more directly on borrowing conditions.
“Premium demand is not free of the cycle, it only reacts to it later and weaker,” Jodko says.
Conditions in the broader market became more stable during the summer. Average developer asking prices in Warsaw fell to approximately PLN 19,600 per sqm in August after a second consecutive monthly decline. The change was influenced by the introduction of more moderately priced homes rather than widespread reductions across existing projects. Newly launched units during the period averaged around PLN 16,400 per sqm.
Completed transactions also point to relatively restrained price growth outside the premium new-build segment. Metrohouse recorded an average secondary-market transaction price of PLN 15,823 per sqm in Warsaw during the second quarter. This was 2.8% higher than in the first quarter but only 1.4% above the level recorded a year earlier.
Meanwhile, developers are operating in a market where buyers have substantial choice. JLL recorded just over 11,800 new-home sales across Poland’s seven largest residential markets during the second quarter, an 8.4% decline from the previous three months. Sales remained 12.7% higher year-on-year, while available stock stayed above 70,000 units.
Warsaw has nevertheless remained relatively resilient. Second-quarter sales in the capital were around 7% higher than a year earlier, according to RynekPierwotny.pl. At the prevailing sales rate, available developer stock represented approximately 4.4 quarters of demand at the end of June, the shortest period among Poland’s seven largest housing markets.
Greater competition at the expensive end of the market is also changing what buyers expect from premium developments. Jodko says discussions increasingly extend beyond the address and size of an apartment to the characteristics that differentiate one project from another.
“In autumn, we see customers who have time and capital, so they negotiate not the price, but the quality: services in the building, privacy, energy parameters, the prospect of resale.”
The evidence therefore points to a Warsaw housing market moving at different speeds. Mainstream prices have become comparatively stable after the rapid increases of previous years, while the upper segment continues to establish significantly higher price levels.
That does not mean premium Warsaw housing has uniformly appreciated by almost 40%. A growing proportion of expensive new supply is contributing to the increase. Nevertheless, the widening difference between premium and mainstream indicators shows that treating Warsaw as a single residential market increasingly obscures what is happening within individual price segments.
