Best and worst months of the year to find a flat to rent in Poland?

I think the standard advice is that landlords drop their rent prices in the colder months as they fear the bills.

What about now, January?

Pretty much every flat I have viewed or enquired after is let (rented to someone else).

I have found 8/10 let within a day or two of the ad going on Gumtree. For various reasons, I can't always view the same day the ad goes up. And a couple of others that have been hanging around for weeks have all let since Sunday, all of a sudden, one of them apparently half an hour after I viewed it and had gone home to await hearing from the landlord.

What months are best for tenants - ie the most choice and best prices? And worst?

One other thing: if I rent a flat and get a written tenancy agreement, that is all I need to register my address and get a PESEL isn't it? I just take the agreement to the local government office and they give me a form then process my PESEL, right? Or do I need the landlord to sign some additional paperwork?

There would appear to suddenly be so many prospective tenants, that even 2 room flats listed 4 hours ago (ie 2am) have 15 views already on Gumtree.

What's happened I wonder? Is January the month when people move into big cities like this one, causing sudden pressure on available flats? Is it a traditional new year/new start thing here? In the UK, the rental market remains fairly quiet until March.

Another flat I was after off Ul Powstancow has had 460 (yes four hundred and sixty) page hits or views between Sunday 6pm and this morning. On Sunday, it had 20 views by the time I read it. I phoned 10am to view it yesterday but was told it had been reserved since Monday.

It's change of terms at universities! :)

Ah, that'll explain it ;o)

...Although not buoyant for all landlords --- not a bad one reduced from 1400PLN or 1450PLN a month to 1000PLN a month today. Not quite where I want to live, but will be a good deal for somebody.

I dont think thats accurate, probably bots or something.

Do bots select some ads and not others? Other lets don't get anywhere near that amount of hits. That flat of course is now let and deleted. Each day until yesterday it got 50 hits approx. In the first 1 or 2 days it got over 400.

I guess not. Probably agents looking for sub contract deals as well.

maybe try autogielda heres some: autogielda.pl

Yes, I know agents do bother private landlords and try to act as middleman. Thanks for the tip, I will check it out.


They have put the price back up now -- to 1400. Must have had a flood of interest and decided to revert to 1400.

165 have looked at this one in just 1 day ... Definitely more people are looking now. Is it because they're not buying property now, or simply moving into Wroc or around Wroc suddenly?

Supply seems to be quite reduced, rents seem to be up by about 10-15% on December. Some of the unrealistically priced stuff is sticking and unlet for weeks. However, looks like most of what I go for is already let unless jumped on the same day or so. People pricing a studio flat as a 2-room get left with it, as do those who have not bothered to refurbish/remodel the interior to a fair standard -- but apart from those clueless types, fair priced flats in the popular areas are let let let. Not good news for me, at all. :o(

More flats are coming on to the market now, rents are moderating somewhat. Seems there was a surge of applicants which has now tapered off, and the supply of flats has improved and it seems the first buds of (relative) realism are reappearing in the asking rent price. Of course, many rents are still massively over-priced for local wages if you look at them through a sober lens.

The high prices maybe due to the fact that some landlords may be out of work and desperately need the money.
They have not figured out the fact that it is better to rent a flat out for less and have it fully occupied than to have it on the market (empty) and be asking a high price.

Same problem in England, they have a void (empty flat) for months rather than drop the rent to what a tenant can afford. One landlord I know there lost GBP5K waiting for a tenant instead of reducing the rent by a hundred a month and getting one in immediately.

Seems there's the greatest competition from late Aug to Sept because some landlords seem to want to raise rents at that time of year. That suggests to me that a savvy tenant should change apartment in June or from November to maybe Xmas to get the best deals.

It does seem to be easing now and a person I spoke to who is very experienced with flats and rentals (although she works in finance) told me in plain English that there are plenty of flats available, she did however vigorously agree with me that the rents are nevertheless seriously out of step with wages.

I nearly got to rent a new flat -- I viewed one and the couple also viewing ahead of me said they weren't taking it when I cheekily (I know, sorry) asked them, and so I offered the full rent and the landlord said OK and told me they were bringing the agreement, so I rushed to the bank and got the money out only to then get a text message (SMS) - after waiting in the cold for an hour for the landlord - that said the flat was suddenly "unavailable". Bad luck or good luck? No idea, but I viewed it the same day it came to the market. It is slightly cheap but a bit shabby inside and the monthly service charge was on the high side.

Quite silly really - am keeping a watch on several flats and they are available for a week or two and unlet, as they keep reappearing on Gumtree. But 9/10 landlords don't reduce the price. Instead, they lose 1 week then 2 week's then a month's rent instead (in English, it's called a 'void'). They end up losing a thousand zl or more, instead of pricing the flat fairly in the first place or reducing the rent by 10% after the first week of no takers. Sometimes it's worse and the flats hang around for months until let, and then they lose 2500zl typically. Landlords - do yourself a favour and price correctly. If there are no takers in a week, drop your price. Be realistic.

Where I have viewed it's has mainly been with an agent. 9/10 agents charge a fee if you rent via them. Typically it's 50% or 100% of what a month's rent is. The majority are charging a tenant the equivalent of a month's rent.

They can't be short of mugs I mean tenants if they refuse to negotiate their fees down. So there must be quite a lot of tenant demand. Despite that, I still see the same flats getting relisted.

But, 7/8 landlords I email via Gumtree or Tablica simply never reply and the page with their flat shows over 100 hits.

I think there is demand, it's just that few will pay what the landlords ask.

212 hits in 36 hours - not unusual when the price might be reasonable... who said there was no real tenant demand in Wroclaw?

• 
  212in36hrs.JPG
  

This one, 536 in 48 hrs. not sure it's cheap but lots of interest anyway

gumtree.pl/cp-dom-mieszkanie-do-wynajecia/wroclaw/mieszkanie-na-krzykach-3-pokojowe-452706768

If we take it at face value, that's about 500 different potential tenants seeking a 3-room flat in a good part of town. If that's not a buoyant rental market, I honestly don't know what is. (It was not a relist, the number of hits are two days' worth.)

• 
  536in48hrsa.jpg
  

Not so many months ago I was told that the majority of Polish landlords deal direct, I think it was on this forum in fact.

Well, just go on over to the property websites and you'll see that a lot of the flats are via agents - and they charge anything from 0 up to a full month's rent to a tenant (ie one year's rental is equivalent to 13 months' rent)

Go to Otodom, for example, on a typical search in Wroc rented flats privately available are 29 when searched, but click the agents offers too, and the number swells to 180.

The agents here are as expensive as the ones in the UK. GBP300 on average to rent a flat via one of them, before you've found any rent deposit or one month's rent in advance. In fact, in the UK it's often less than that figure, the majority come in at GBP200 or so.

One problem is that if you advertise privately, you get inundated by bottom-feeding agents offering to find you a tenant.

Word of mouth is usually a good way to find a flat.

You're right on both counts, I have heard that said before.

I did a word of mouth thing and only got offered rubbish in Wroc's worst streets. I did poster ads and only got 1 reply from a block I didn't even advertise at.

A flat with not far from a thousand views on Gumtree but no takers refused my offer of 10% off the asking rent, even with me saying I'd not want the garage space and would rent it from Monday (ie tomorrow).

Landlord merely said:

Witam,

Warunki zaproponowane nie są do przyjęcia.

Z poważaniem

So, it's going to just sit there unlet until he finds someone who pays full whack and takes the garage, and if that's another week and he loses 600zł or another month and he loses 2000zł it doesn't matter because at least he will get his price and full rent. No problem there at all. None whatsoever. Can't see any flaw in the mathematical logic, no sir.

Just beggars belief he'd rather not see 4000zł in his hand tomorrow and instead risk it empty for however many more days until someone else comes along and perhaps rents it for no longer than I would or even a shorter period. However, a little digging reveals the flat is owned by a company in another country, in E Europe!!

(No way am I increasing my offer, that garage space is worth far more to him than the 10% discount I requested, I've been very fair and he can kiss my behind.)

Agent got back to me today to tell me I can forget it if I want a 3-room at 1600, as there's only 1 on her books sub 2200. Her fee is 50% of a month's rent.

2 other agents got in touch and politely told me to pizz off when I suggested a month's rent as their fee was pretty high (that's 350GBP)

More and more of the good stuff is only with agents. Among the direct landlords, prices are higher for the privilege of not having an agent fee to pay or that's how it seems.

I placed 4 flats on my watchlist on Otodom yesterday. One day later, 2 have already been let.


However, over on Gumtee I can see several flats that have been available for a month relisted. It's patchy but generally most of the good stuff goes fast, unsurprisingly.

One of the suddenly inactive ones is not let, merely relisted, so the old ad became inactive.

I also notice some flats that were privately advertised without success are then given to an agent at the same price. This could mean that some landlords would slice an amount off the monthly rent -- because surely the rental agents charge them (and often the tenant too) if they find a tenant. Food for thought! My advice: haggle!

It's a weird market out there for rentals.

One reasonably priced flat's live-in owner landlord wasted a very nice agent's time - when I said I was going ahead, the owner wanted far too much as the deposit. Additionally, she was supposed to be moving in a week but there was no actual visual evidence of it.

Another landlord told me they'd sign with me (I offered the asking price) and they signed with someone else instead for no known reason.

And another had priced her flat at 15% more than an identical (and actually possibly superior) flat on the same estate. When I asked the landlord to match the price of the other flat, I was totally ignored. The other flat was superior in furnishings, my only concern was the agreement. Today, the landlord or landlady who ignored me is sticking to her price and the flat remains available.

There are also a lot of flats that I see on Gumtree and Trovit that are seeing their rental prices being reduced after many weeks of unrealistic landlord expectations.

But, in some locations and some streets, things are very much better and even steep prices do not deter tenants. Which makes me wonder where their money's coming from, but perhaps they are the lucky ones with good jobs.

It seems more often than not, the agents have the better properties at more realistic prices -- but most agents charge a one-off fee to the tenant of 50% or more of the monthly rent. Increasingly, though, agents are volunteering to charge me nothing and only charge the landlord. I can also say that of the agents I've met, they seem far less shark-like than the majority I met in Britain. Or perhaps they're just wolves in sheep's clothing...

(One last point - check an agent's contract carefully, even with various awards or whatever, there's no guarantee their contract will be kind to the tenant.)

Best- Jan /Feb
Worst - September

mainly relates to students and professional contracts

Best for tenants or landlords? Not sure which you meant.

tenants - here in Warsaw there are many flats as much as 800pln cheaper / month than they were leading up to these months since April of last year

It's always cheaper to find a place in winter, no matter where you look. People are usually stuck wherever they are bundled up and warm and aren't looking to change while it's cold. Landlords with empty places are more desperate to move their property then. I've found this true in both America and Poland.

On the other thread, you'll see I'm not having much luck... https://polishforums.com/real-estate/poland-kodeksu-cywilnego-umowa-najmu-tenants-64695/#msg1352553

The sad truth is,that most people have special deals and arrangements with their rented accommodation: either they are getting reduced rent because the landlord is a family member, they are squashed 4 people in a 2 person flat, they are westerners on western wages, they have a partner working in the west, or, they have sh1t lives paying the full rent but its better than living with the parent and grandparents. Overcrowding is extremely high in Poland;up to 65% of population.

Rental market is **** at the moment.period.

Well, I offered an amount of rent on a flat last week, it was very fair, and it was exactly the same amount as an identical top floor flat on the same estate was going for, except the flat I offered on could be said to have been a bit inferior as it faced north and didn't have such a good view or bathroom. The landlord (a woman) sent me a snotty email telling me how fabulous her flat was and that it was now let to someone else who appreciated it. If she's telling the truth and she achieved her asking price, her flat broke new ground in terms of price as far as I can see from Trovit, as she would have achieved 15% more for rent than anybody else did in 2012 and so far this year. Why, well that would be a mystery.


I see, well all I can say is that there's some appallingly bad value out there at the moment, and some very stubborn landlords, bad contracts, hidden property defects too.

@InWroclaw, my guess is the snotty landlord was lying. If she had found herself a tenant I'd be amazed if she would have wasted her time emailing you an email.

Sounds like sour grapes on her part.

Well all i know is after renting out a little flat from new in the mid 2000's this is the first time we have struggled to rent it out and it is reasonably price for what it is. So I'm experiencing a dry patch in the market at the moment. i have other Polish friends also struggling to rent out properties. Boohoo for us.

Funny thing is I don't even know why she was so annoyed with me, I wrote to her very respectfully and without any harsh business talk. And I sent her a link to the other flat, so she could see for herself.


Thanks for the info, I'm sorry you're having problems, but it gives me some hope then for my own situation -- so far I'm either brilliant at spotting great value or very unlucky! One a few weeks ago was taken just 5 mins before I got there to see it. It had only been advertised for 2 days at most by the time I got there, possibly just one day.

I think it's a reflection of the almost total lack of professionalism in the property market, to be honest.

One that I enquired about that was only listed 1 week ago -- already gone.

This was the agent's email

dziękuję za kontakt w sprawie wskazanej oferty. Oferta wskazana jest w rezerwacji. Mogę jednak wskazać inne ciekawe mieszkania. Zdjęcia nie oddaję w pełni uroku tych mieszkań.

(the email says that the flat is reserved for someone else, but they have others if I'd like to check them out)

The others are cr&p.

We have friends that invested in a 1 million zloty luxury 100sqm 2 bed apartment in a new Tower complex in Gdynia. Their morgage is 5000zl a month and they have been renting the apartment out for 2500zl a month and currently have no tenants. This is a ****** situation to find oneself in. One of their previous tenants was arrested by the police because he was a crook. Ironically we, who have been renting out a small 30sqm flat have also had one of our tenants arrested because he was a fraudster.

So needless to say both my friend and i are wary about tenants.
I was checking oferty.net and in our town of 40,000 people there were only 6, 30sqm flats for rent. So why ours is no going is beyond me, i'm putting it down to weather, time of year and general nervousness about the economy.

Doesn't surprise me. The price of it is just totally out of touch with reality. No-one with money would live in Gdynia, they would be in Sopot. Gdynia is an awful place to live, there's nothing happening there and it's absolutely boring. Good place to work, but terrible place to live.

Couldn't agree move. Gdynia Chylonia is not nice at all. Gdansk is a ***********, Old towns nice but the rest. as well, Sopot is by far the nicer place to live but again you pay through the nose for what you get.

At least with Sopot, you'd be able to rent it out in summer easily enough. I know some people working for Sony there on really good money, but all of them live in Sopot because of how bad Gdynia is. It's the same with Gdansk, there are some nice enough areas, but most of it is just horrible.

Amazing how people buy property without doing their homework though, a ten minute drive around Gdynia would tell you that there's nothing happening there in terms of entertainment.

Thankfully for our friends, they can afford the morgage easily enough, however what kills me is they prefer to live in a 60sqm flat in Reda closer to family and friends, than their luxury property in Gdynia.