Which Factors Reduce Home Prices the Most in Poland

When people say that a “bad neighborhood is cheaper,” it sounds too vague to be useful. In reality, the Polish housing market does not penalize every problem equally. Some negative factors barely show up in prices, while others create a very clear discount. If we focus on research from Polish cities, the strongest downward pressure on housing prices comes from noisy and conflict-heavy locations, especially areas near airports, railways, and neighborhoods with a serious crime problem.

Airports and aircraft noise: the heaviest discount

One of the strongest and best measured negative factors in Poland is proximity to an airport and the noise that comes with it.

For Poznań, a study based on 16,247 transactions showed that rising noise levels reduce apartment prices differently depending on the source. The strongest effect came from railway noise above 55 dB, which reduced price by around 1.79% for each additional dB. Aircraft noise reduced price by around 0.59% per dB, tram noise by 0.32%, and road noise by 0.12%.

A review of Polish studies on airport noise in Warsaw also cited another striking estimate: roughly 0.8% lower apartment prices for every additional dB of aircraft noise.

That is already substantial. But the picture becomes even harsher when we look not only at decibels, but at whether a property is located inside an airport impact zone at all.

Homes near airports can face double-digit discounts

Research on housing near airports in Gdańsk and Warsaw shows that homes inside the limited use area were, on average, noticeably cheaper than homes outside it.

In Gdańsk, the difference was around 9%, while the OLS model suggested a discount of roughly 12%. In Warsaw, the average difference reached as much as 39%, and the model estimated a discount of about 29%.

The authors do note that the model fit for Warsaw was weaker, so those figures should be treated with caution. Still, even with that warning, the broader conclusion is clear: proximity to an airport is one of the most serious negative factors for housing prices in Poland.

Railways: one of the most painful noise-related factors

If airports are the most obvious source of heavy discounts, railways are also among the strongest negative influences.

In the Poznań study, railway noise had the largest price effect of all the tested sources: about 1.79% lower price for every additional dB above 55 dB.

This matters because railways affect value through more than just measured sound. For buyers, they often mean constant disturbance, vibration, stress, and a general feeling of lower comfort. And according to Polish data, the market clearly reacts to that.

Safety: a bad reputation also lowers prices

The second major factor is neighborhood safety.

A Polish study from Szczecin was built around the idea that a higher crime level reduces both the popularity of a location and the price per square meter. In their conclusions, the authors say that in most cases there is a strong relationship between crime and housing prices.

There is no single clean formula such as “minus 5% for rising crime,” but there are very telling relationships. For example, in the Nad Odrą district, the correlation between prices and robbery and theft with assault was −0.813, with fights and beatings −0.508, and with burglary −0.493.

For an ordinary buyer, the conclusion is simple: a neighborhood’s bad reputation and criminal background do create a real price discount. This is not just a vague fear. It is a measurable market signal.

Road and tram noise: important, but not at every level

The picture is more mixed when it comes to road and tram noise.

On the one hand, the Poznań study shows that higher noise levels do reduce housing prices. The estimate was around 0.12% per dB for road noise and 0.32% per dB for tram noise.

On the other hand, the authors highlight an important nuance: road noise below 60 dB and tram noise below 65 dB were statistically insignificant.

This means the market does not automatically punish every bit of noise. It starts reacting more clearly when noise moves beyond a tolerable level and becomes part of everyday discomfort.

That is why an apartment near a road will not always be much cheaper. But once the noise becomes genuinely annoying, it starts to show up in the price.

Poor air quality: bad for life, but not always for market price

There is another important result that goes against intuition.

Not everything that makes life worse is already fully priced in by the Polish housing market. A good example is air quality.

In a Warsaw study with a sample of around 15,000 observations, the authors expected PM10, PM2.5, and PM1 to reduce housing prices. In the end, however, they did not find a statistically significant effect on transaction prices.

That does not mean polluted air is harmless or unimportant. It means something else: the market may be underestimating environmental risk, even when it matters a lot in real life.

For Holfox, this is especially useful. Air and noise metrics matter not only as “market” factors, but also as life-quality signals that can reveal hidden problems before a buyer makes a decision.

What currently hurts prices the most in Poland

If we simplify the overall picture, the main factors that reduce housing prices in Poland currently look like this:

• airports and aircraft noise have the strongest negative effect;
• railway noise is another very heavy factor;
• neighborhood safety and crime come next;
• road and tram noise also matter, but usually only after the level becomes clearly disturbing;
• poor air quality can seriously reduce quality of life, even if it does not always create the same clear market discount.

Why this matters when choosing a home

Buyers often look at price and assume they simply found a better deal. But a cheap apartment is often cheap for a reason.

Sometimes the market has already priced in the airport nearby, the noisy railway, or the bad reputation of the area. And sometimes, on the contrary, it has not fully priced in environmental risks like poor air quality, which means a low price can be misleading.

That is why price per square meter alone is not enough. What matters much more is understanding exactly why the market is offering a discount and what you will have to live with every day.

The main takeaway

In the Polish housing market, the factors that reduce prices the most are airports, aircraft noise, railways, and neighborhood crime. Road and tram noise matter too, but usually only above a certain threshold. Poor air quality can be a serious life problem even when the market does not yet penalize it as clearly.

That is why a “cheap neighborhood” does not always mean a good deal. Quite often, it simply means the market has already accounted for future discomfort.