The war on the eastern border could discourage the construction of new houses and blocks of flats. We are checking whether this was visible in border counties.
The way of perceiving a full-scale war taking place beyond the eastern border may certainly be slightly different in the case of (for example) the Podlaskie and Lower Silesian voivodeships. That is why experts from the RynekPierwotny.pl portal decided to look at the activity of housing investors in the border counties of four voivodeships. These are areas where, with some exceptions, generally few apartments and houses are built. However, we can check whether construction activity in these border areas has changed differently from 2022 than in the entire country. As part of comparisons, the area of entire voivodeships (i.e. Warmian-Masurian, Podlaskie, Lublin and Podkarpackie) can also be taken into account.
In many communes of eastern Poland, little construction is carried out
It seems that before analyzing the border regions, it is worth paying attention to the map below. It shows the average annual number of houses and residential premises put into use by all investors per 1,000 people (result for 2022 – 2024). The map prepared by RynekPierwotny.pl experts based on Central Statistical Office data shows not only the agglomeration of housing construction, i.e. its concentration in several agglomerations.
Thanks to the map, we also see that generally few houses and residential premises are being built in border areas. The exceptions include, among others: around Suwałki and Białystok. Importantly, the low activity of housing investors from border counties is a phenomenon that was visible even before the outbreak of a full-scale war across the eastern border. The map below says a lot about it
investors' earlier decisions, as it includes premises and houses put into use in the years 2022 – 2024. The construction of many of them began before the fateful day of February 24, 2022.
Was the war turmoil felt in Podlasie?
We can take a closer look at the situation in border counties thanks to the chart below. It informs how the number of houses and residential premises started (by all investors) changed in relation to the result from 2018. The level of investment activity in 2018 was marked as a starting point by an index value of 100. Data covering up to ten months of the current year (appropriately converted into an annual period) concern the following areas:
- all of Poland
- voivodeship Lublin Voivodeship
- border counties of the province Lublin (Biała Podlaski poviat, Chełm poviat, Hrubieszów poviat, Tomaszów poviat, Włodawa poviat, Biała Podlaska and Chełm)
- voivodeship Subcarpathia
- border counties of the province Podkarpackie (Bieszczady poviat, Jarosław poviat, Lubaczów poviat, Przemyśl poviat and Przemyśl)
- voivodeship Podlasie
- border counties of the province Podlaskie (Augustów poviat, Białystok poviat, Hajnówka poviat, Sejny poviat, Siemiatycze poviat, Sokółka poviat, Suwałki poviat, Białystok and Suwałki)
- voivodeship Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship
- border counties of the province Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship (Bartoszycki poviat, Braniewo poviat, Kętrzyn poviat, Gołdap poviat and Węgorzewo poviat).
Analyzing the chart, we see that in 2022 – 2023, new construction activity decreased above average in the province. Podlaskie and border counties of this voivodeship, as well as border counties of the province. Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. In the latter region, there was a later “rebound”, much greater than in Podlasie. Is this a basis for drawing specific conclusions? It turns out that this is not the case.
As always, it's worth taking a closer look at the data
Experts from the RynekPierwotny.pl website draw attention to an issue that is not visible when analyzing generalized information from the Central Statistical Office. This is about the large impact that the situation in Białystok and Suwałki had on the results for 2022 – 2023 calculated for the voivodeship. Podlaskie and its border counties. Both in the capital of Podlasie and Suwałki, the years 2022 – 2023 brought a significant decrease in the number of new houses and premises started. Could it have had a special connection with the war situation?
the eastern border of the country?
It should be noted that in the nearby counties (Białystok and Suwałki) construction activity measured by the number of houses and premises started did not record similar declines. The years 2022 – 2023 brought a slowdown in the new activity of developers, i.e. investors dominating in Suwałki and Białystok. This, however, is not very surprising considering the conditions at that time. A deeper look at the data confirms that we will not find it in other border counties either
changes that may suggest an extraordinary impact of the war on the activity of housing investors. However, the low level of this activity (e.g. in the Hrubieszów or Bartoszyce poviats) is the result of factors that were already active before 2022.
