Higher price caps for no-deposit mortgage flats lift eligible supply in Warsaw and Łódź

New caps take effect in October

New, higher price-per-square-metre limits for flats bought under the 'Mieszkanie bez wkładu własnego' programme took effect in October. The caps apply in the fourth quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027. Warsaw keeps the highest cap, which rose from 16.2 thousand zł to 17.5 thousand zł per square metre. Poznań moved from 13.8 to 14.6 thousand zł, Wrocław from 14.4 to 14.7 thousand zł, Gdańsk from 13.5 to 13.7 thousand zł and Kraków from 13.7 to 14.0 thousand zł. Katowice rose from 11 to 11.2 thousand zł and Łódź from 9.9 to 10.1 thousand zł per square metre.

Eligible supply grew unevenly

Data from RynekPierwotny.pl, shared with Fakt, shows that the higher caps increased the number of developer flats meeting the programme's conditions in most cities, though the effect varied widely. Łódź rose from 784 to 1,023 eligible flats and Warsaw from 275 to 354. Katowice went from 262 to 317 and Poznań from 759 to 802. In Gdańsk the count fell by one flat to 219, and in Wrocław it also fell by one, to 304. Kraków offers only 46 eligible flats even after the higher cap.

Marek Wielgo, an expert at RynekPierwotny.pl, said the earlier limits had increasingly diverged from market realities, so the increase was needed. He pointed to a second condition that narrows the choice.

The problem is that to use the government guarantee of the down payment, the apartment price must also fit within the limit of the guarantee amount itself.

Buyers using the maximum BGK guarantee, which can replace the missing down payment, in practice need flats costing about 0.5 million zł or less. Buyers of more expensive flats must have savings to cover part of the required down payment.

Flat size does not guarantee eligibility

A small footprint alone does not secure eligibility. Of the 354 Warsaw flats that could be bought with a no-down-payment mortgage, 148 were one-room units and 192 were two-room units. Wielgo said the largest gains came in Łódź and Warsaw, while the price rise brought practically no change in Gdańsk, Wrocław and Kraków.

Asking prices level off

Rafał Bieńkowski of Nieruchomosci-online.pl analysed how sellers priced second-hand flats in the third quarter. In 13 of 18 voivodeship cities, average asking prices for two-room flats either stabilised or fell during the quarter. Quarterly changes in Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk, Bydgoszcz, Opole, Rzeszów and Toruń stayed below 1 percent. Bieńkowski said Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk and Wrocław are all in a phase of price calm, while Łódź is the exception among the top six cities.

Bieńkowski also described the gap between listings and deals.

Prices in listings are often merely a starting point for talks, not the final amounts from notarial deeds.

Parkiet reported that one in twenty transactions allowed a discount of more than 10 percent to be negotiated.

Market prices in September

Gratka.pl data show the median asking price of a flat in Poland was 649 thousand zł in September, up 0.25 percent from August. The median price per square metre rose faster, by 0.96 percent, to 13,125 zł. Year on year, asking prices were 5.21 percent higher and the price per square metre was 7.14 percent higher than in September 2025. The median price per square metre of a new flat was 14,052 zł, against 11,392 zł on the secondary market, a 23.3 percent premium.

Gdańsk had the highest median price per square metre at 18 thousand zł, ahead of Warsaw at 17,222 zł and Kraków at 16,068 zł. At the other end, Łódź was at 10,400 zł, Szczecin at 10,170 zł and Kielce at 10,150 zł. Of more than 120 thousand flats offered on Gratka in September, 63.8 thousand came from the primary market and 56.3 thousand from the secondary market. New flats stayed on sale for an average of 110 days, against 57 days for used flats.

Developers sell more

Tabelaofert reported that developers sold just under 4.4 thousand flats across seven of the largest markets in September. In the third quarter they sold 12.9 thousand flats, more than 1.4 thousand above the second quarter and nearly 11 percent above the third quarter of 2025. Otodom data show September sales of 5.1 thousand flats, 18 percent above August and 17 percent above September 2025.

Katarzyna Kuniewicz, research director at Otodom, described the third quarter as follows.

Otodom reported that developers sold 13.1 thousand flats in the third quarter, 9 percent more than in the second quarter and 28 percent more than a year earlier. At the end of September, developers offered just under 59 thousand flats worth a combined 51.6 billion zł across seven markets.