Income distribution and housing in Poland between 2004 and 2012

As performing the major transition reform and joining the European Community fifteen years later Poland's economy should be rather observed from the broader historical perspective, nevertheless as provided by Eurostat data the income inequality in Poland between 2004 and 2012 decreased by roughly 15%. Thus, this decrease was a result of redistributive effect of social benefits and taxes. And, which was the impact of this redistributive effect on housing allocation if the median equivalised disposal income was higher by roughly 9% for the owners of dwellings and the ownership rate reached 82% in 2012?Between 2004 and 2008 the housing market boomed and then slowed down for the next six years leading to reducing sales volumes and falling prices. On the other hand, the dwellings' prices have been rising over the last twenty years driven by the strong economic growth. The boom indeed was forced by the increased inflow of investments, mainly due to accession to the European Union, low interest rates, mortgage financing development and new government programmes. And although the housing sector was a considerable priority for the communist government, since then it has been still facing the major problems like: housing shortage and deficiency of dwellings, decay of building stock, the ownership structure, demographic and social changes in the context of the building stock and availability of dwellings, changes in the labour market, the government housing policy, barriers to the development of the construction industry.