Mortgage fever in January. Why do Poles go to banks en masse despite the lack of subsidies?
The value of inquiries about housing loans in January 2026 increased by 50.4%. year to year – the Credit Information Bureau reported in a statement on Friday.
A total of 36.3 thousand people applied for a housing loan in January 2026. people, by 28.5 percent more than a year earlier. The number of people applying for a housing loan also increased compared to December 2025 (by 8.4%).
These factors have driven the home loan market
The average value of the requested housing loan was PLN 492.08 thousand in January 2026. PLN and was higher by 11.5%. than in January 2025. Compared to December 2025, it increased by 0.9%. January average is the highest on record, which is caused by rising housing prices.
— The growing demand for housing loans is a direct result of interest rate cuts in the previous year and expectations for further ones in 2026. An additional factor positively influencing demand is both the nominal and real increase in wages. These factors directly influence the growing creditworthiness, which increases the availability of credit and translates directly into an increase in interest in taking out a housing loan – said Prof. Waldemar Rogowski, chief analyst of the BIK Group.
— Increasing creditworthiness also allows you to apply for increasingly higher loan amounts. The January reading of the BIK Demand Index was also largely influenced by the average amount of the housing loan applied for. Another historic record was broken in January – the average loan amount applied for was over PLN 492,000. PLN, which means that exceeding the amount of PLN 500,000 PLN is realistic this year – added prof. Rogowski.
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Credit Information Office
The BIK Demand Index for housing loans is an indicator that measures the interest in housing loans in Poland. This index shows how the value of housing loan applications submitted by individual customers changes compared to the same period last year. This indicator is useful for analysts and financial institutions because it helps assess trends in the housing loan market and allows forecasting the level of lending in the coming months.
This was the mortgage sale in 2025 according to the National Bank of Poland
Although the government program “Safe 2% Credit” has already become history, Poles are signing contracts for previously unseen sums. In 2025, a record was broken in mortgage sales. According to data from the National Bank of Poland, sales reached PLN 90.5 billion throughout the year, which means a year-on-year increase of 8.5%. Recently, these data have been revised downwards.
We do not know BIK data for the entire year 2025 yet, but after 11 months sales amounted to PLN 95.7 billion, which means an increase of 18%. year to year (the previous highest result according to BIK was PLN 90 billion in 2021).
See also: Visible slowdown in supply on the housing market. There is new data
However, there is a catch to this. According to the information provided to us by BIK, 18 percent the value of this year's sales of housing loans is refinancing (compared to 13% in 2024). To this extent, loan sales are “inflated” relative to typical demand for new real estate financing.
