More and more people in Poland take housing loans, the Central Bank of the country reported.

The number of mortgage seekers is constantly on the rise despite stricter bank criteria for granting such loans, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency has reported.

It quoted the National Bank of Poland’s Piotr Kasprzak as saying that more people were deciding to buy homes on the back of a strong economy, falling unemployment, rising wages and job security.

Polish President Andrzej Duda earlier this month signed into law a bill aiming to speed up the construction of new homes amid a housing shortage.

According to real estate experts, there is still a shortage of around 3 million housing units in Poland.

The number of homes completed in Poland rose 6.3 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period in 2017, the country’s Central Statistical Office reported last month.