Residents of Eastern Europe began to buy apartments in the western EU due to the war in Ukraine

Residents of Eastern Europe began to actively buy real estate in Spain amid fears about the expansion of the geography of the Russian-Ukrainian war. CNN reports this with reference to realtors and several residents of the countries.

One of the publication’s interlocutors, realtor Agnes Marciniak-Kostrzewa, recorded two waves of demand for Spanish real estate from Polish residents: in February 2022 and from February 2024. According to her, in the last few weeks she has been receiving especially many calls from potential clients. This comes against the backdrop of statements by Donald Trump about plans to encourage Russia in its confrontation with NATO and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk that Europe is in the “pre-war era.”

“After Trump’s statement and Tusk’s interview, we received calls from people asking if they could come within three days and buy a property, and wondering how long the whole process of getting the keys took,” Marciniak-Kostrzewa told CNN. Notary Maria Ruiz Lopez, who works with Poles, also told the publication about an “incredible increase” in demand for the purchase of real estate in Spain.

“Very often our clients say that the reason they buy real estate is that they are afraid of war, they are afraid of Russia. So they would like to have some place where they could go for a while if the need arises,” she said.

Lopez says some of her clients are buying property in mild panic. One of them bought an apartment in Spain last month because he wanted to avoid conscription into the Polish army, she said. Realtor Agnes Marciniak-Kostrzewa said that one of her clients bought property in Spain and asked to rent it out on the condition that, if necessary, he could quickly move in there himself. When she explained to him that it takes a long time to evict tenants, the client decided to leave the new apartment empty “just in case.”

A 70-year-old resident of Poland, Wieslaw, also told the publication about buying an apartment in the south of Spain as a “safety net.” “When I heard stories about Ukrainians who had to leave their country within an hour, taking all their property with them, I realized that all my property was in Poland. The trigger was actually the war in Ukraine,” he said.

Another Polish buyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that the war was "definitely the main reason for making a quick decision to buy" property in Spain. As a father of two, he said the "most important thing" for him and his wife is knowing they have a second home if needed. “This way we feel much more comfortable,” the publication’s interlocutor said.

According to the Polish publication Bizblog, cited by CNN, a record number of Polish citizens bought property in Spain in 2023, exceeding the previous record set a year earlier. However, the publication does not provide specific figures.

Residents of Estonia and Lithuania are also actively buying apartments in Spain, realtor Livia Illak told CNN. According to her, in 2024 she received the highest number of such requests in 20 years of her work.

“Three months ago I started getting requests for very small apartments [...] People want to buy something here [in Spain] in case the situation gets more serious, so they have somewhere to go,” Illak said.

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