Agnes Marciniak-Kostrzewa\u2019s phone won\u2019t stop ringing. She\u2019s been in the property business for 25 years, helping Poles to buy homes on Spain\u2019s southern shores, but the past few months have been \u201creally crazy.\u201d <\/p>\n
There are lots of reasons why people might trade the Baltic coast for the Mediterranean. More than three decades after the collapse of communism, Poles are richer than ever before. Many who started businesses in the early 1990s are now looking to retire. And remote work, ushered in by the pandemic, has allowed many to live more rootlessly and opt for warmer climates. <\/p>\n
\u201cI experienced two waves of rapidly growing interest in buying properties. The first was in February 2022, immediately after the outbreak of the war. The second has been since February 2024,\u201d Marciniak-Kostrzewa said. <\/p>\n
The mood has darkened in recent weeks, as Russia seeks to build on recent battlefield gains, testing for weak spots along the frontlines and pummeling Ukraine\u2019s cities with airstrikes. President Volodomyr Zelensky warned this week that, if the United States Congress fails to approve military aid, Ukraine \u201cwill lose the war.\u201d <\/p>\n
And the comments of prominent Western figures are causing jitters elsewhere on Europe\u2019s eastern flank. Former US President Donald Trump in February said he would encourage Russia to do \u201cwhatever the hell they want\u201d to any NATO member not paying their due. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk last month warned Europe is in a \u201cpre-war era.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter Trump\u2019s statement and after Tusk\u2019s interview, we got calls \u2013 I don\u2019t even know how many \u2013 with people asking if they can come within three days and buy the property, and how long the whole procedure takes to get the keys,\u201d Marciniak-Kostrzewa said. <\/p>\n
A record-breaking number of Poles bought property in Spain in 2023, topping the previous record set the year before, according to Polish outlet Bizblog. <\/p>\n
Maria Ruiz Lopez, a notary based between Spain and Warsaw, said demand has been \u201cincreasing incredibly\u201d since the start of the year. <\/p>\n
\u201cVery often, our clients tell us that the reason for which they\u2019re buying real estate is because they\u2019re afraid of the war, they\u2019re afraid of Russia, so they would like to have some place where, eventually, they could leave for fast, if there was such a need,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Some buy in a slight panic. Lopez said a client last month bought a property because they wanted to avoid being conscripted into the Polish military. Marciniak-Kostrzewa recalled another who, spurred by fears of the war spreading, last month bought an apartment in Spain and asked to rent it out, on the condition that they could access it swiftly if needed. When she explained that removing tenants from a property takes time, the client said: \u201cOK, let\u2019s keep it empty, just in case something will happen.\u201d <\/p>\n
Others buy with an eye to their investments. For Wieslaw, a retired Pole in his 70s, the prospect of war coming to Poland is a \u201cblack swan:\u201d a low-probability, high-impact event. Still, he wants to hedge his bets. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I heard stories of Ukrainian people being forced to leave their country within an hour, taking with them all their belongings, I realized then that all my property is in Poland,\u201d <\/strong>said Wieslaw, who preferred to give only his first name to maintain his privacy. He still lives in Warsaw, but bought a small property in Andalucia, southern Spain. \u201cThe trigger, really, was the war in Ukraine.\u201d <\/p>\n Poles may be a special case. After its post-Communist economic \u201cmiracle,\u201d more Poles are able to buy second homes abroad than before. And, due to its borders with Ukraine and Belarus, Poles may feel more need to do so. <\/p>\n But other Eastern European countries are also buying in the West. Liivia Illak started her business 20 years ago, mostly selling expensive Spanish properties to clients from her native Estonia. But this year, she\u2019s received more requests than ever \u2013 and many of her clients are looking for smaller properties. <\/p>\n \u201cObviously, we are in NATO, but I must say there\u2019s a big amount of people who are really, really afraid,\u201d she said. This year, she says she has also helped Lithuanians to buy properties in Spain. <\/p>\n The spike in demand comes as Russia has stepped up its \u201cwar on nerves,\u201d projecting an image of its own inviolability while Europe appears to dither on matters of its own defense. <\/p>\n In Russia, Putin\u2019s grip on power is tighter than ever after his rule was extended another six years in widely discredited elections and the death of opposition figure Alexey Navalny. <\/p>\n And abroad, Putin is keeping Europe guessing. Missiles heading for Ukraine have strayed into Polish airspace. Belarusian troops \u2013 at the Kremlin\u2019s behest \u2013 have built up on Poland\u2019s border. Estonia has warned of \u201cshadow war\u201d attacks on its soil. And in Lithuania, one of Navalny\u2019s aides was bludgeoned by a hammer \u2013 a message that even home soil is not safe. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Agnes Marciniak-Kostrzewa\u2019s phone won\u2019t stop ringing. She\u2019s been in the property business for 25 years,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}