The Customer Whose Decision Is Made at a BankNarrow moat

About half of Polish home purchases involve a mortgage, and the share has been trending up. In 2025 Polish banks granted a record 106 billion złoty of housing credit, nearly 21 percent more than in 2024, and the country finished the year with 3,64 million mortgage borrowers¹.

For that half of Dom's buyers, the purchase decision is not really made in a show flat. It is made in a credit committee, against an affordability calculation the buyer does not control and Dom cannot influence. A household's capacity to buy is set by the reference rate, the regulator's stress-test buffer, and the bank's own appetite — three variables owned by three institutions that have no commercial relationship with the developer whose flat is being financed.

This is why Dom's sales figures track the mortgage market more closely than they track anything the company does. The 2022 tightening did not make Dom's homes worse; it removed the buyers' ability to pay for them, and mortgage applications collapsed. The 2025 rate cuts did not make the homes better; they restored borrowing capacity and Dom set a record. The moat's Cyclicality Trap threat argues the investment consequences of that; the point here is narrower and about customers specifically — Dom's largest customer group arrives pre-qualified by somebody else.

There is a partial defence, and it is the reason the brand matters more than it looks. Banks lend more readily against a developer with a thirty-year delivery record and audited escrow accounts, and buyers who are already stretched prefer a counterparty that will still exist when the building is finished. Dom converts its reputation into the buyer's credit approval, which is a real if unglamorous advantage.

Watch the volume of new mortgage lending, not Dom's offer. It is the leading indicator, and it belongs to the National Bank of Poland.