Comparative Evaluation of Public Data Sets on Average House Prices in Poland

Research background Access to official information on the real estate market, backed by the authority of public institutions, in particular on average housing prices, is an important element of the real estate market regime. In Poland, such information is published in various spatial, temporal and subject ranges by the National Bank of Poland (NBP) and the Central Statistical Office (CSO). Recipients of such data expect high quality data. This paper presents a comparison of data on the average prices of 1m2 flats in 16 Polish cities published by these two state institutions. Purpose The aim of the research is to assess and verify the consistency of information published by the NBP and the CSO on listed prices of dwellings on the secondary and primary market with regard to the possibility of using them to make investment decisions and market analyses. Research methodology Relative and absolute differences between the average housing prices published by the CSO and the NBP were calculated. an analysis of the structure of these differences was carried out. Results Large differences in the data published by the CSO and the NBP make it necessary for these institutions to subject the entire process of creating information on average housing prices in individual local markets to a thorough analysis. Novelty The study indicates that public datasets should not be used for further analysis and research indiscriminately.