Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for the presentation of Echo Investment quarterly results. Today's presentation will be held by Nicklas Lindberg, CEO of the group, and Maciej Drozd, CFO of the group. Maciej, can I please ask you to start the presentation?
Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and let's start, you know, from reminding ourselves about Ukraine and the war and what we are doing for refugees. For most of the year, we continue to support refugees in our office buildings, where we accommodate around 700 of them currently, and we'll continue to do this throughout this winter season. The war and inflation and many other changes in the business environment had a huge impact on the markets. Let's see what is that impact, how we see the future, and also how Echo performs in that challenging environment.
We were focusing on making sure that our balance sheet is strong, that we have a strong cash position, which is around PLN 700 million at the end of September, and that the main success factors that are influencing our business are in a good shape. We have a very strong land bank in residential segment. We have a very high level of lease-up in commercial segment, both office and retail. We have absolutely outstanding Resi4Rent performance with full, fully let apartments and with strong increases of rents. Our gross debt already was reduced by end of September compared to a year ago, and we repaid further PLN 200 million in Q4 of this year.
Our net debt is reduced by the ongoing asset disposal that we'll talk about that are happening in the office segment. Let's focus on individual segments and let's start from residential, which is becoming more and more important in our business. As everybody know, compared to exceptionally strong, exceptionally high, 2021, this year showed a significant decrease in the number of sold apartments. What happened then is that the developers started to delay, postpone, or even cancel starts of new projects. As a result, we can see that the prices on the market, the offered prices and the transaction prices are relatively stable despite of much lower volumes.
We see that our offer, so offer of Echo and Archicom, which is mainly consisting of centrally located projects in major cities, is the one that performs best in this difficult environment of residential sales. We are focusing on that, and Nicklas will tell you later more about our projects and how we manage them in residential segment. Resi4Rent, so rental segment, as I already mentioned, is performing in an extraordinary way. This is due to the very strong demand and, of course, the supply is not able to meet the demand. It's not possible to increase the supply of rental apartments in a short period of time. Of course, rents are growing very high compared to a year ago, and we have absolutely no vacancy in our projects.
I would like to remind you that we are active in this segment from 2018 when we took a strategic decision to develop Resi4Rent, and now we see that we have a very strong competitive advantage in this market because other developers, other residential developers only now starting to be present in this segment, and we think it's already late. We have currently 3,000 units under operation, and we focus to build a portfolio of 10,000 units by end of 2024, early 2025. Again, Nicklas will tell you more about that. Office segment is very interesting because during COVID, less and less projects were started. As a result, we have relatively little new supply, especially in the strongest markets like Warsaw, Wrocław or Kraków, where we focus our activity.
We also have very interesting situation with rents because they increase because of relatively low supply, but also they do increase because of because of euro inflation. All these rents in existing buildings, not only our buildings, but in the market, are indexed with euro inflation. It is expected that from the beginning of the next year, market rents will increase by around 9%, which of course is a very strong growth compared to last few years when inflation was low and the rents were very, very stable. We are focusing, as I mentioned, on three cities which are the strongest cities in office segment: Warsaw, Kraków, and Wrocław. We will start new projects there because we see the market, and we see the demand coming from from tenants.
Again, Nicklas will expand on that a little bit later. Retail performance is very strong in terms of footfall, in terms of tenants turnover. We see that when we compare these numbers to 2021 to 2020. Last years, we see strong growth of footfall of tenants turnover, and we are happy or very happy with the operational performance of these centers that we own. What is also interesting and I think, again, Nicklas will, I'm sure, mention a little bit more about that, is that we also see that the investment market is starting to be quite active in retail segment. Of course, it's important because we develop assets to sell. We are not, you know, keeping them forever.
Construction market is interesting as well because despite of the high inflation, we see the prices stabilizing. In particular, in residential and office segments, where less projects are being started, and we expect the same for the next year. We see more and more construction companies not having work, so willing to really offer much better prices than before. We think that this trend will continue, so we should be able to build at the prices which are for sure not higher, but we expect them actually to be lower next year compared to what is happening now in the market. Let's look just at particular highlights for, you know, and the drivers of our business.
Once again, as I mentioned before, in Resi for Sale, we focus on central locations, on large cities, because these are projects which attract cash buyers. As we know, this is the most active and the most dominant group that we can rely on currently, because people who need to rely on credit, who need to borrow money, of course, they are much less, like creating much less demand these days because of interest cost. Resi for Rent, we are focusing on building 10,000 units and having them in operation by early 2025. In the commercial segment, as we have very high level of lease, and the projects are very close to be sold, we start new projects to keep up with the demand from tenants and also of course, you know, to build and sell them.
In the corporate, you know, part, we focus very much on cash position, but also on managing the debt exposure, in particular bonds. As I mentioned before, we already repaid PLN 200 million in Q4, and we actively manage coming maturities. The highlights for the quarter were good. We had a very good, you know, number of handed over apartments, over 1,500. We started the construction of second phase of Brain Park in Kraków. As I mentioned before, Kraków is a strong market, and we continue to develop projects there. Also in Kraków, we have achieved master plan for Kapelanka project. That will be another destination project in our portfolio. Also in Q3, we had a tender offer for Archicom shares, and we increased our shareholding in Archicom to around 71%.
After end of the quarter, we are happy with continued performance of residential segment. We start new projects in good locations. As I mentioned, the good locations are what we believe. These are projects that will perform well even in this more challenging environment in residential segment. Brain Park is achieving very good lease-up level and, you know, we started the next phase. We opened two Resi4Rent buildings in Kraków and Warsaw with over 500 apartments. This is important because we see that the market is absolutely, you know, expecting these buildings, and they rent very quickly. Also, as I mentioned before, after end of Q3, we repaid PLN 200 million of bonds, we issued PLN 25 million of bonds in that period.
If we just look at the financial result, at our profit. The profit for three quarters of this year was around PLN 125 million. For the Q3 was around PLN 63 million, which was better than consensus, and the consensus was around PLN 50 million of net profit. The result is good. Later on, I will explain what was driving that result in particular. Nicklas?
Yes. Let's go over and look at the residential business. Like Maciej said before, we have been selling around 1,200 apartments. We are focusing a lot on the cash buyers. That will continue being a strong part of our segment. We're doing central location residential apartments with good quality, with a stable company, and this is what we're gonna continue focusing going forward. As Maciej showed before in the slides, we see in some markets, but Wrocław is unique, we see sales prices increasing. Our theory is as well that there will be less and less apartments started, and based on that, we will also see that prices are stable, and you will in some markets, you will even see them slightly increasing.
The offer that we're having today is roughly nine months of sales today, and we have for... Assuming for next year, that we're gonna sell around combined 2,000 apartments. A lot of the stock is today in Archicom that has around the stock, they should have around 12 months. In Echo, we're gonna continue starting up a lot of products during 2023. A lot of them will be in Warsaw in very, very good locations. That will drive up the sales, but also the expectations on future profits. We are very bullish about our residential business. We also are seeing now on the market that we continue selling at a good pace in all of our projects, which is also very strong signal that we are having a theory on the market that is working going forward. If you look at our completed projects, we have a very, very low rate of unsold completed apartments.
You will see that where Echo is being present today is in the bigger cities. We have a strong pipeline with the city-forming projects. This is what we believe will be a big part of the market going forward in all these segments where we're being present. Also what you will see, and companies like Echo, the bigger developers will get bigger as they are having the stability, we have the cash position, and we can continue driving the business going forward. The expectation from us is to see a further consolidation of the market, and where we are also actively looking how to continue increasing our residential presence in line with earlier strategies that we have been communicating. This is an important slide. As many of you see, we are still in the top layers.
As I've been very clear in my whole strategy from beginning, we are focusing on a profitable growth, we are defending our margins, we're keeping selling at the right pace, and we have a very, very strong land bank. What we are doing now, we're being very picky about the product that we are starting up. We are making sure that it's in the right location, and can deliver the return and the cash flow that we expect from our residential business. Our focus is to continue being in the top segment of the residential developers, but more important, also be in the top segment of the one delivering the best returns to the shareholders going forward, and delivering the best quality to the people buying our apartments. Here you see how we continue selling at the pace that we have anticipated.
We are continue focusing on next year, going up and selling around 2,000 apartments. We'll continue completing our project in a pace that we are feeling fine with. Also, the handovers are happening in line with our schedule. Like Maciej also highlighted before, we have started up more than 600 apartments already now in the last quarter, and we continue starting up new projects. We're also looking at this one from a construction point of view, where the construction market was very, very strong a couple of quarters ago, and we see now it's softening based on lower and lower amount of projects being started.
As Echo has been very, very efficient with our internal resources, always to make sure that we get the most attractive pricing, we are already now seeing signals that the market are going down, and we think it's gonna continue in 2023. We are pretty sure that we can deliver even more effective on the construction side to meet the future demand. You see here how we're handing over, how we continue defending a high margin in all our projects, and this is something you're gonna see going forward. That is the margin that we're gonna do in the project that we're starting up going forward, and we're gonna continue staying at the same level of the margins, which is the level that we think from our perspective that we should stay at, and making sure that we continue delivering that shareholders return.
This is what I talked about before, the current offer. We are focusing on starting up new projects in 2023. From Echo, it's gonna be a lot of projects in Warsaw, where we have a very good pipeline of projects on Towarowa. We have projects on M-Park. We have project on Stacja Wola. We have other projects that you will see in the central part of Warsaw, which is the market that is proven to always be resilient on any changes on the market. That's why we feel very sure to be able to have a very, very strong pipeline that we can continue feeding the market with. You're gonna see a lot of projects start in Warsaw during 2023. We have a strong land bank all over Poland.
We are up to 1,200 apartment, 12,000 apartments that we have secured on the long period of time. We are today feeling very, very happy with the land bank we're having. We're always looking for new opportunities, but we are not stressed in any way as we have a super strong land bank. If something is gonna be add on, we're gonna make sure that it's right value based on our future strategy. Resi4Rent, like Maciej said, we went into this market in 2018. We were one of the pioneers on the market. Now we have continued building up our presence as the number one Resi4Rent supplier on the Polish market. We have today around 3,000 apartments in the operations. We have opened up another 560 apartments in this quarter now.
We have a land bank that is today almost giving up to the target of 10,000 apartments. Today, we have a land bank between 9,500-9,700 apartments. We have 3,000 apartments in operation. We have said by 2024, we're gonna have 10,000 apartments either in operation or ongoing. Today, when we see more, and we're gonna continue focusing on starting up new projects. What you will see this year, we are still striving to the target to get up to start up 4,000 apartments. 'Cause like Maciej said before, the demand is so strong, and we see it continue being a very, very strong demand for many, many years going forward. 'Cause we just think we are in the initial stage of the development of a rental market in Poland.
We are gonna continue driving that change, continue starting up new projects. By 2024, our target is not only to have 10,000 apartments ongoing or in operation, but also being able to have 8,000 apartments that are rented or being able to be rented to the inhabitants of Poland. We think this is really gonna be a strong game changer on the market. We also see, looking at the market around us, we are the one has before been the leader, and we think we've taken further steps to be the dominant player on this market. Our theory behind all those things are people who like to have a stable supplier of apartments that also can deliver stable way of living for many, many years in a rental apartment has really, truly paid off.
We think we are just in the initial stage. What you see here, this is the breakdown of our apartments. We are in the biggest cities in Poland. We're gonna continue developing more products in all these cities, and we're gonna continue driving up the scale. Here, we're going for central locations, what we believe surely gonna be rented out, and at the right size between the apartments. This is something that we're gonna talk more and more about in the coming quarters. I think you're also gonna see how year-on-year our portfolio continues growing in a very, very good pace. Here is an example of the apartments that we have started and that we are planning to start.
As you see, another 1,600 apartments to be started now in Q4. We have already started 2,350 under operations. You see here it's a very, very strong land bank. It's a very, very strong portfolio that is under construction or already today in operations. We are far, far from being ready when we think we get up to the 10,000. We see a much, much, much bigger potential in Poland. The commercial of Echo is, like Maciej said, we have completed Brain Park phase one. We have now started up Brain Park phase II. We see very strong leasing demand from the market. We're gonna do a strong Q4 in leasing, which is just proving back the latest year's gonna be very strong. We see rental growth.
We're gonna start up projects in Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, in all these markets where we see rental growth. Also, we're gonna focus on divesting projects, as Maciej said before, which I also gonna come into later in this presentation. Here is the projects that we have sold so far. We have sold three projects in the first half of the year. In the coming months, we're gonna sell another two projects. This shows that investors really believe in the quality that Echo deliver, and also the tenants believe in the quality that we are delivering to the tenants. That is proven by the lease-up that you see in all our projects. The latest example now is My Place II, that is leased-up to 90% of the space in the building, and it's gonna continue being leased-up in the coming months.
We have three projects that we're gonna lease up now, the main thing we're leasing up here is React 1, that we're gonna see a strong leasing coming up in the coming months. Brain Park 1, we're leasing up the last space. City 2 is already fully leased. All these projects are high-quality projects that is gonna be sold during 2023. When we come into the 2023, in the next presentation, we're gonna talk much more about the other focuses we have in 2023. This is the clear focus that we're doing today. Here we are already today in discussions or in the earlier phases of discussions to be able to plan them to be divested in 2023. Like Maciej said, our strategy is to develop, build, and sell, and we're gonna continue sticking on that strategy.
What is proven that in good times or in bad times, we still continue selling off our commercial or residential assets. We have a very, very strong land bank, and this is gonna continue being focused going forward, where we're looking on how to increase the land bank, how to get more square meters. We're looking here, of course, on Warsaw, Kraków, and Wrocław, that are the three biggest markets in Poland, and where our majority of focus is. This is where we're gonna continue focusing going forward to increase our presence in those three markets. Like Maciej said before as well, and we see a very limited supply will drive up prices, and also inflation will drive up rents. What we see here, the rent is gonna be driven up by inflation and also that there's limited supply.
We also see, of course, that yields is gonna be moved. We think that it will be compensated by the increase in rent and also in what we're seeing as well, that we're gonna be further able to reduce our construction cost. We see going forward that from our point of view, it's the right time to continue starting on new projects in good locations where we can continue delivering the returns that we have done historically and the returns that we are targeting to going forward. This is all based of having focus on the three biggest markets that is a very clear target from our side. Warsaw, My Place I. We've been able now to lease it up to 90%. We are having ongoing discussions on the remaining space. This is now in the final phases of being divested.
You see Face2 Face is 100% leased. We leased up the last areas now too in the last months. That is also now in the final stages of being divested. Which has also proven that our strategy continues working. We continue having investors that are coming back, looking for high-quality buildings, leased up with high-quality tenants. This is the investment product that you can keep from year after year that will stably give you the good returns that you're looking for. Kraków Brain Park is today 70% leased. We are now discussing on the remaining space, and we're doing in 2023 being able to divest this project. If you look for another pillar of our business, which is CitySpace. The co-working space has increased in importance. We see it in all our locations.
In all our new office buildings, we always put in co-working for the reason this is what tenants are looking for. The flexibility, they're able to be both have your permanent space at the same time as you have your flexible space. This is a super important ingredient in the new flexible way of working. For Echo, with CitySpace, we've always been one of the pioneers in this market, and we're gonna continue driving up the dominant position we're having in Poland. We're being present both in Warsaw but also around in all the regional cities. You see here also from CitySpace with the new locations that have been opened up, has a very high lease-up. We also see that the increase in rent is always also driving up the prices that we're getting for leasing up our shared offices.
Here we have today 12 location, 3,400 workplaces, and we're gonna continue growing our businesses in the coming years. Here is also the same as we have in other businesses, continue being a dominant player, continue adding on value in all our office buildings and also in the whole business that we're having, that we look out for the whole aspect of our tenants to be able to deliver a sustainable product. If we look at our retail, like Maciej said, we have Galeria Libero, which has been opened up just before COVID, has continuous now in the last two years deliver very, very good results. We're up now in 2022, which will be the record year. We had now two fantastic weeks in a row, where both footfall and turnovers are continuous increasing.
This is one of the projects that we are now getting up, that we talked for a long time. We're now seeing the center being stabilized. Like Maciej is saying, we see that there's a strong demand now for retail. Investors are coming back. The yields are attractive levels. They see that the footfall, the turnovers in the center is really good. This is one of the projects that we are now adding on, and we are now looking at when is the right time to exit. We think that will be coming in the coming years, but we see that it's the potential to continue divesting this one and focus in investing in new areas. What you see here, as Echo, we are strong.
We develop project, we build them up, we create the footfall, we stabilize the center. After that, we find a new owner to the center. Galeria Mokotów is a bigger center than Libero. We have driven up the footfall. We are now focusing on driving up the turnovers. This will take slightly longer time to stabilize, we're on a very, very good path on the center to continue getting it as one of the dominant centers in Warsaw. Also lately, we've been adding on with a new tenant mix. I would say that Galeria Mokotów has today the strongest fashion offer in Warsaw and will continue developing going in the coming years to be able to be taking that dominant position in Warsaw with a new build center that we have targeted from the day we opened up the center.
If you look for permitting, as many of you seen, if you look out over the old Towarowa 22 site, we are starting demolishing. We are now ready to be able to soon launch a new project. We're gonna do a new destination project, adding up to 200,000 square meters of mixed-use in the same way as we've done on Brewery, where we had both offices, we have residential rent, we have residential sale, we have food and beverage, we have entertainment. This is really gonna be a new way of Wola establishing really the area as the new city center of Warsaw.
This is a very, very exciting project that we have been working at for many, many years. We are now in the stage where we see it really fulfilling. We are super excited that during 2023 to be able to announce to all of you the fantastic destination project we're gonna build here. From an ESG policy, we'll continue working on it. The main pillars of it will be planet, people, and shareholders. We're also now focusing a lot what we have highlighted in the last presentation, how we plant more trees, how we make it more green in all our projects. Also latest what we've done is the demolition of all the existing centers where we recycle and try to recycle up to 100% of the old areas. Recycling of all the products that we are now buying and demolishing is also very, very important part of our ESG strategy. As you've seen through the last years, we've been acquiring a lot of standing assets that we are then reshaping to new areas of city centers in the different cities around Poland.
Now let's look again in more detail on the financials, on our performance in the three quarters of this year. Again, PLN 125 million profit in three quarters, PLN 63 million in Q3 compared to around PLN 50 million consensus. You can see, as I think Nicklas already mentioned, that we have strong margin in residential segment, that we also showed a positive revaluation in Q3 on the balance. I think it's important to mention that a very important contributor to the result was evaluation of our Resi4Rent portfolio, which is currently 3,000 operating units. We have still a long way to go to recognize the profit on the remaining 7,000, which we are planning to be operational by early 2025. Our balance sheet is strong.
It did not change a lot compared to the beginning of the year, also not a lot compared to a year ago. We have ongoing divestment processes. My Place, Face2Face, and City 2 are assets held for sale. You can see that, you know, when they turn into cash, of course, this will be a very, very important liquidity event. Of course, our cash remains strong at the level of around PLN 700 million, which is similar to what we had a year ago. Let's look at the other side of the balance sheet, so at our liabilities. Also slight decrease of debt. As I mentioned, you will see further decrease in Q4 when we repay PLN 200 million of bonds.
Otherwise, you know, we don't see a lot of movement. I think what is important is to look forward. We had PLN 700 million of cash at the end of the quarter. PLN 200 million of bonds falling due in 2022 were already repaid, as I mentioned. We don't have a lot maturing in 2023. 2024 is higher, but we are already very actively managing this liability, as we are focusing on extending the maturities. Of course, like in case of PLN 200 million, also on repaying the bonds as we create liquidity coming from the asset disposals. You know, to remind you that we did pay 44 groszy per share of dividend in respect of 2021. Of course, we have dividend policy that is to be applied to 2022, and it will be later a decision on how much profit will be distributed in respect of 2022. That's basically it. Tomasz, let's look at the questions.
Thank you very much, Maciej. Actually, the first question goes to you because it's related to financials. Are we planning to pay a dividend in December?
Well, I think [crosstalk] we can.
We received five of them.
We can only announce it when we take the decision, right? Of course, just to remind you on the process, it's a resolution of the management board that needs to be supported by supervisory board. There is a due process, and of course, we will inform the market as soon, you know, as this happens or not, right? We cannot disclose that at the moment.
Nicklas, could you be a little bit more precise? Because we received a question, which offices will be disposed actually in this year? Because we said in a few months. Is there any chance that any of this office will be sold still this year?
Of course, there is. We are working very actively on them. As you all know, we are already now in December, it's very difficult to say if those transactions happens in December or January. That is we're in the range where we're seeing today that we see those transactions happening. That's why we are being a little bit more vague if it happens this year or early next year, 'cause it's very difficult when you come into December, and it's Christmas holidays and nothing's happening.
Mm-hmm.
Our target is to be able to close transactions this year.
Thank you. Maciej, few of our viewers also noticed that there is a negative revaluation on Libero. Could you explain that to our viewers?
Right. I think, as I mentioned, and also Nicklas expanded on the fact that we are very happy with operational performance of Libero. Of course, operational performance is really about rental income NOI, and we see growth here and, you know, it's very satisfactory. As we also mentioned, you know, we are focusing right now on the disposal of course, of the Libero. The market is becoming more active. With the higher interest costs in Eurozone, we also see that the transaction yields that happen in the region are slightly higher than they were before. We felt that we need to adjust the valuation. It has nothing to do with the operational performance, but it reflects the fact that the interest costs are high. Of course, this has somewhat, you know, some impact, which of course you appreciate it's not a big impact on the yield. We felt, you know, it's important to reflect this as we are really focusing on disposing the asset.
Mm-hmm
Possibly next year.
I think also it's important to add on here that retail has always been a business for us, now that we're saying that it's something that we did in the past, and we are now slowly fading out to that business. Our target for me and Maciej is to be able to divest our retail assets and then recycle that money into new businesses. That is our number one priority.
Yeah.
Like Maciej highlighted, the revaluation we did was very small based on the business. The important takeaway from this should not be focused on this revaluation, it should be focused on the strong performance we see in the center. It's stabilized and it's now ready to be put into the next stage of divestments.
Yeah. Thank you. Nicklas, another two question are related specifically to the projects. The first one is about the Wita Stwosza project. When do you think we will be able to release projects renderings or A news about that?
What you see now, lately, what happened in the last weeks, is that the master plan has become final and binding. We are now having the final discussions with the city. Early Q1 you will see more about the Wita Stwosza project being announced in the way it's gonna be built going forward. You will see a destination project consisting of offices, Resi4Rent, Resi for Sale, and all functions in this fantastic location next to the railway station. In Q1, this is one of the projects that is high on agenda to start next year. You are gonna see now much more about the project early in Q1.
Another actually question is about project in Piotra Skargi, which is located in Katowice. What are the plans right now for this plot?
What we've done before is we have focused on this project here to be an office project. Lately now what we've seen is the market is extremely strong in both in the Resi4Rent and the student housing sector. This is why we are now reshaping this project to be more in that area of business where we see a strong demand. This is one of the areas on the map that we're not covering today. What we gonna be much clearer in the coming presentation, is we're gonna much more define them under the Resi4Rent segment. What you will see is some of the projects before what was under the office segment will be now relocated to a Resi4Rent segment that you have not seen before in our presentation, but we're gonna be much more clear from the next presentation going forward. The project has not disappeared. It's a beautiful project in the city center of Katowice. It's just gonna get a new use that we think is better adapted into today's market.
Maciej, we are coming back to financials. The company has issued retail bonds this year. Are we preparing a new program for individuals? This is the first part of the question. Second, are we considering euro bonds for institutional investors in the next year?
Right. Well, I think these are very good questions. We, you know, in fact, you know, we, we say during each of these quarterly presentations, we are happy to use diverse sources of financing. We will definitely continue to work with individual investors. We will, we are preparing the new program for sure. Of course, Euro financing is important for us because we have assets which are actually, you know, euro-denominated assets like offices and retail. Of course, we already have, you know, both at corporate level but also, you know, at subsidiary level. Absolutely yes.
Mm-hmm. Thank you. We still have five minutes, so I think we can ask three or four more questions. Actually, the next question goes to Nicklas. What is the construction price for one square meter of the building now compared to a year ago? The second part of the question, what about fit-out costs? Did they specifically in Resi4Rent, did they increase or decrease?
To come back to your first question, it's, you cannot do general on what the price of one cost, because it depends what you're building. What we can see that if you go back and looking it from a more historical point of view, there was COVID, prices was going down 'cause there was less production going. In the end of COVID, prices went up based on that everybody started up. A year ago, I think it picked up, and we've seen it from that moment constantly going down. If you look from us, what we will see from the peak a year ago until where we are today, we will roughly say that we are 15% lower in the cost of construction that we saw at that point.
Saying that, we were very, very restricted in starting up new project when the prices were at those level. Today, we see projects that are coming in below the budget that we had go in the past, slightly below, and we think this will continue going down with another 5%-10% during 2023. This is the theory that we are basing it on, and we think that we already see more and more signals going in that direction. Fit-out for Resi4Rent is not that it has increased dramatically, and I think we are not the best comparison here, because we start so many projects and we are trying to build it like a machine, so that everything has the same standard in all the different locations. We don't see construction prices, fit-out cost increasing dramatically. We see more that we have changed our standards that has increased the fit-out cost of the total area of construction. Percentagely, the fit-out is the same of the total construction that has been historically.
Let's stay in the area of Resi for rent because we received more question about that product. Do you see any further growth Nicklas of rents in this portfolio?
I think we are just in the beginning of the increase in rent. It's based on that we will look at many other markets that has a much higher sales price, much higher rental market. What we will see historically, Poland was a market where everybody tried to buy their apartment. Many more will rent their apartment. We look a lot about the affordability ratio in our Resi4Rent apartments today, and it's historically in a very low % compared to other markets, because there's more people living in it. The salary those people are having is pretty high. We see this continue increasing prices. It will not increase as dramatically as it done during the last 12 months, but it will for sure continue increasing. We also think this is the part that will drive that sales prices for apartments in very good location will also increase, because the people that are investing will see that they will get a better return on their money.
Mm-hmm. Staying with the Resi4Rent, is there any direct link with Ukrainian refugees coming to Poland that and the success of our projects that are 100% leased?
Of course there is. You cannot ignore that it's been coming so many people from Ukraine, from other countries, from Belarus and other countries coming into Poland, which, of course, has been driving up, that there's a much bigger demand. What you should remember, even before the war, we were fully leased in all our projects. What you will see, and we also look constantly at the mix between people. It's Of course, there is a link that a lot of people coming into Poland need to rent apartment. The same, that is not something that will change going forward, because the underlying demand is still there from the Polish inhabitants. Also the Ukrainian people coming into Poland will stay here for a longer period, because we see a lot of them that are renting from us is already now establishing a new life in Poland.
The last two questions. Actually, this question could be asked to any of you, Maciej or Nicklas. I will ask the question, and one of you can start answering. What are the current prices of plots or parcels that we are planning to buy to our land bank? Is the second-hand supply become more and more visible?
Well, I think I would say that, of course, you have many developers that have, you know, projects prepared, you know, for start that are not starting. Of course, you also have many landowners that were, you know, working on the sale that is not happening because of course, if developers don't start projects, they also don't need to buy land. It's quite obvious that the land prices, you know, need to adjust. I think we are at the beginning of that process. I think it will go much deeper in 2023, because people need time to realize that, you know, that the expectations need to be adjusted. I think the prices will go down for sure, and that's why we are patient, you know, when we look at new opportunities. Of course, good land is always good, right?
Mm-hmm.
You should not expect-
Of course.
That it will be for free. overall prices will need to be adjusted for sure, right?
I think it's important what Maciej is saying here, that price in good locations will never be extremely cheap. We have never seen it during COVID, we'll not see it now. What we see, we are being approached today with land plots that was historically not for sale, that is today for sale. Like Maciej is saying, me, him and me analyzing, we think that we're just in the beginning and there will be coming better opportunities for us going forward, where we can have a unique situation. We're having a very strong land bank at the same time as we have a strong cash balance in the business.
Having said that, do you believe lower cost, of course, potential lower cost of construction and plots can boost our margins or potentially allow prices to be lower? I think, Nicklas or [crosstalk] Maciej, you can both.
Well, Maciej, I can start again, and maybe Nicklas will have the last words, right?
Read from the crystal ball a little bit at the end.
That's the last question. No, I think that, you know, it's a little bit about how you plan the whole process, how you plan the pricing, right? Of course, if your costs are lower and you know they are lower, you can offer a lower price, right? Because it's not that. Because, you know, we know what the market is, and of course, this is a market where you need to be. Even if you have excellent product, you need to be conscious about the price you offer. Of course, that would be, I would say first priority. The reason why, you know, we had exceptionally high margins, for example, this quarter, right? Is that we also were selling at the time when market was extremely strong, right?
It's not that you basically do with the margins what you want. You need to look at the market and you need to think what is the right selling price, what is your cost. I don't think that. Of course, you know, we'll not plan to have extraordinary margins on projects that are not, you know, justified. Again, Nicklas can confirm only that we have very good projects in Warsaw, for example, for the next year. On these projects, I think we will not be so much willing to compromise on the price, right? Because they are simply excellent projects. If you have something which is more repeatable, more similar to what others are offering, of course, you need to play the price card much stronger.
Nicklas, and.
I agree with Maciej.
Great. Thank you very much, gentlemen. With this final question, we reach the end of our session. I would like to thank you for all of the viewers for very interesting question. We tried to respond to most of them. If there is any question, or that remained unanswered, of course, me or Emil Górecki will contact you directly. Thank you very much again, and hope to see you soon, at the end of March when we will publish the full year results. Thank you very much.