1 Rental Housing in Poland – private and public finance W. Jan Brzeski

2 Rental Housing as Reform Component Housing reforms should begin with rent reform Housing effort ratios very low in Soviet economies Need to accept higher effort ratios -> higher pre-privatization rents Political economy against higher effort ratios / rents / payments Political economy for give-away micro-privatization instead Primacy of housing choice: type, standard, location, tenure Rental choice for non-beneficiaries of privatization: young and mobile (students, yuppies, dinks) urbanizing migrants and intra-urban nomads vulnerable groups in need of emergency housing permanent urban poor expats, divorced, life-style choice

3 Rental Housing as Market Component Demand for rental housing tends to: Decrease with income and age, with increase at retirement Increase with income uncertainty, job search, divorce, mobility Decrease with household size, influenced by household type Decrease with better access to mortgage financing Increase with growing propensity to consume (rather than save) Strongly correlate with building stock composition Supply / investor categories active: Public municipal rental including social Subsistence micro-landlords Small /medium private landlords including restituted Cooperative rentals Non-profit new rental apartments Institutional portfolio investors Lenders financing private and non-profit production

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6 As the number of households who did not benefit from the privatization continues to grow – especially the young, the mobile and the poor – the lack of accessible and affordable formal rental housing is pushing them into informal rentals with little tenure security, discouraging higher residential mobility and thus labor market flexibility.

7 Young, Mobile and Poor

8 Governments are increasingly recognizing that sustainable homeownership for all is neither financially and fiscally possible, nor desirable for all household groups and life-cycle stages.

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10 Tenure-Stock Structure in Poland Public rental: Total housing - 14 % Capital city -21 % Rural areas - 2 % Urban areas - 20 % Private rental: Total housing -17 % Capital city -29 % Rural areas - 6 % Urban areas -22 % Overall homeownership rate: 66% Share of multi-family apartments: 70%

11 Tenure-Income Structure in Poland Ownership and income (by quintiles): I %; II – 15.5 %; III – 19.5 %; IV – 24.7 %; V – 30.3 % Public rental and income (by quintiles): I – 16.4 %; II – 21.1 %; III – 21.8 %; IV – 21.3 %; V – 19.4 % Private rental and income (by quintiles: I – 21.2 %; II – 20.6 %; III – 21.0 %; IV – 19.6 %; V – 17.7%

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13 Rental Finance Components in Poland Public / municipal housing: residual of privatization PPP non-profit new rental housing TBS Cooperative rental housing Restituted pre-war rental apartment buildings New subsidized rental dwellings New unsubsidized rental dwellings Informal renting of private apartments and homes Illegal sub-letting of municipal rental apartments

14 Rental Policy Directions in Poland Rental sectors role in economic reforms: Linkage to life-cycle demand trends of young population Linkage to labor mobility and regional development Linkage to filtering chain induced by new construction Linkage to social shelter provision Recognizing the need of tenure choice availability Recognizing the need of SME landlord entrepreneurship Recognizing the need of facilitating continued urbanization Contradictory impediments to rental sector reforms: Populist rhetoric of excessive rent controls Failure of courts to rule on evictions onto the street Incomplete landlord-tenant regulations biased towards tenants Failure by populist parliament to approve Government policy

15 Rental Policy Instruments in Poland Allow municipalities to decide on privatization: Considerable social housing stock retained Create tax rules for prewar rental apartment buildings: Deductibility of costs, spreading of losses Allow rent differentiation within municipal rental stock: Mimicking market relations between dwellings Subsidies to construction of new rental dwellings: Program abused and discontinued Subsidies and lending to non-profit new rental TBS: 60,000 built with large subsidies and uncertain targeting Develop housing allowances to all formal tenants: Good targeting, under-subscribed Provide professional property asset managers: Over 25,000 licensed managers with modern education and training

16 New PPP Rental Initiative Social housing by banks-developers-municipalities: Municipality issues long-term rental contract for a building Bank finances production backed by long-term municipal contract Developer supplies the new building and holds the building At contract expiration municipality takes over building ownership Currently feasibility studies in some pilot sites: Some municipalities willing to experiment How much risk backing to developers Looking for lessons learned elsewhere with similar schemes Current government skeptical about PPP schemes

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