Housing Gap Estimation in Poland’s Heterogeneous Housing Market

Abstract National aggregate measures of housing shortages often obscure local disequilibrium, bundling heterogeneous markets and masking the coexistence of severe deficits and excess stock. Furthermore, the housing gap is affected by demographic and cultural changes, which need to be factored into any projection of it. To address these limitations, this article proposes a novel, empirically grounded framework for calculating and projecting the housing gap at the regional level. The model accounts for local demographic projections, immigration trends, and the adaptive responses of real estate developers. We apply this framework to Poland. Our analysis reveals that, as household growth reverses, market adjustment transitions from a return to equilibrium through new supply toward a rapid accumulation of uninhabited dwellings. Consequently, the resolution of the aggregate national housing gap is likely to coincide with widening spatial divergence between local markets. Rather than producing a deterministic forecast, this framework serves as a robust tool for structured conditional forecasting. By identifying where shortages are likely to persist and where oversaturation may emerge, it offers a comprehensive analytical foundation for examining market adjustment, development pressures, vacancy formation, and future house price developments.