⚠ Sometimes the Bottom Keeps FallingModerate threat

Buying in the downturn is the right strategy in most cycles and a painful one in a bad enough slump. Land and companies bought at what seems like the bottom can keep falling in value if the housing recession proves deeper or longer than expected — at the 2022 trough, new-mortgage applications were down some seventy percent year on year¹ — a prolonged period of high rates, a structural fall in demand, or a demographic slump could leave even a disciplined buyer holding assets that do not recover on the timeline assumed. And acquisitions of whole companies bring their own risks: integration, hidden liabilities, overpayment in the enthusiasm to expand. The counter-cyclical playbook has served Dom well precisely because Polish housing has always recovered, and it is a bet that it always will — a reasonable bet, but a bet, and one that would look very different in a genuinely structural, rather than cyclical, decline.