Abstract

This publication presents a literature overview and research results on the functioning and monitoring of the real estate market. A dominant part of the research presented in this publication is performed at the Narodowy Bank Polski. The real estate market was the cause of many economic and banking crises, but until recently has got relatively little attention from the central bank point of view. The analysis focused separately on the problems of the construction sector, on the housing and social policy and on the loan disbursement policy of banks, without looking at the problem in a holistic way. During the transition period Poland lacked a broad, consistent and long-run focused housing policy. The housing market was treated by policymakers in a way, which resulted in a misallocation of resources, the deepening of the natural cyclical nature of the market and even lead to housing market problems. This problem was strengthened by the opacity of the market and it was not easy for policymakers to apply solutions that are used abroad. Housing market cycles tend to be longer and more pronounced than cycles in other sectors of the economy (see Andre 2010), which is the result of a fixed supply in the short run. If housing demand grows due to a rising fundamental demand and also due to speculative demand that is fuelled with bank loans, prices tend to rise fast. In the next step the increased supply enters the market with a time lag, often under new economic circumstances in which economic growth and thus housing demand has declined. The realization of such a boom and bust scenario was stopped in the Polish market in 2009 due to the outbreak of the financial crisis in the world. It changed the sentiment of consumers and investors, made banks issue less loans and resulted in a declining housing demand. Housing developers started to slow down the construction of new housing or stopped it. In consequence, the market
started to move to its equilibrium point, without observing the burst of a bubble and having to deal with the negative consequences that are associated with fast price declines.

This article presents the development of the housing finance system in Poland, which had a direct and strong impact on the housing market. The rising loan availability lead to rising housing demand and consequently resulted in a strong rise in house prices that was followed by a housing construction boom. The 2004–2010 cycle is analysed and the behavior of consumers, developers, banks and investors is presented in detail. Moreover, this part describes the evolution of the mortgage market and discusses the choice of an optimal housing finance system. The housing finance system that is currently in place and the up- and downside of various possible financing systems such as universal banks, mortgage banks and various covered bond systems are discussed.