Real estate / 09.02.2022

Mortgage loans crashed the bank(s) in Poland

Mortgages in 2021 in Poland

Residential real estate loans (mortgage loans) disbursed in Poland in 2021 totaled PLN 89 billion. This is the best result in the history of Polish banking. The total debt of customers under mortgages exceeded PLN 0.5 trillion, but it remains low compared to other EU countries.

According to BIK data, in 2021 banks in Poland granted residential real estate mortgage loans worth PLN 88.7 billion. This result is 40 percent better than in 2020 and at the same time the best in history. The previous record (from 2008) was beaten by nearly PLN 19 billion (27 percent).

High-amount residential real estate mortgage loans

This time, however, exceptionally good sales were not the result of a large number of contracts, but high real estate prices, which grew despite the pandemic. Although the former were also very much concluded – 272 thousand, i.e. by 1/4 more than in the previous year.

A better result was recorded only in 2007-08. These were respectively: 314 and 287 thousand residential real estate loan contracts.

In 2021, the average mortgage amount was PLN 326 thousand. This is by 14 percent (PLN 40 thousand) more than in 2020. At the end of the year, it was already PLN 349 thousand. Nominal increase in the average amount of mortgage liability proved to be the largest in the history of collecting statistics.

It could not be otherwise since, with interest rates close to zero (until the end of September), the best-selling were residential real estate loans for large amounts, i.e. in the range of PLN 350-500 thousand and over PLN 500 thousand. The former increased by nearly 45 percent year on year, the latter by nearly 88 percent.

More than half (57 percent) of the demand for residential real estate loans was generated by customers from agglomerations. In comparison with the previous year, the sales of mortgages in the Upper Silesian metropolis (+50 percent) as well as Łódź and Kraków (44 percent each) increased the most.

However, in terms of value, these agglomerations had the largest share in sales:

Warsaw (19.6 percent),
Trójmiasto (6.9 percent) and
Wrocław (6.7 percent).

Secure mortgage debt

At the end of 2021, total customer debt on residential real estate loans reached PLN 526.4 billion. This represented 20.3 percent of GDP.

In this respect, Poland ranks at the bottom of the pile among EU countries and well below the average (36.7 percent). In other words: Polish society is relatively indebted when it comes to real estate.

Residential real estate loans in Swiss francs accounted for less than 18 percent of the entire mortgage portfolio (PLN 94 billion). Their share is steadily decreasing. In 2009 they accounted for 60 percent of the mortgage debt, and six years later – for slightly more than 1/3.

This is due to several factors:

1. systematic repayment of liabilities by customers

2. practically no new foreign currency loans (they are available, but on special terms)

An increase in the value of the portfolio expressed in zlotys (from PLN 78 to 412 billion in the period 2009-2021), although – despite the weakness of the zloty – the debt of the so-called franchise holders in nominal terms (from PLN 131 to 94 billion in the analyzed period).