Real estate market: You will now get a quarter less than you expect for an apartment in Prague
According to Trigema, the first of the more significant changes is the growing interest in new buildings outside Prague. The number of purchased new buildings almost reached the peak of 2017, when 1,700 new housing units were sold in the last quarter of the year. It was similar this year. “During April to June, almost 1,700 new apartments were sold outside the capital. The year before, at the same time, it was only 900, “said Marcel Soural, Chairman of the Board of Directors.
In previous periods, the number of these flats sold was only around 1,000 to 1,300 per quarter. The reason is, of course, partly the fact that there is a general shortage of residential real estate in both Prague and Brno, and some people solve this by trying to live in their surroundings and commute to both cities for work, shopping or culture. The second factor is price
But this trend has its downside. Of course, the wider “clientele” outside of Prague places ever-increasing demands on transport services. For example, the railway network in the Central Bohemian Region is already at the maximum of its possibilities. This is evidenced, for example, by the crowded morning trains that transport to the Czech capital.
However, according to developers from Trige and Pilsen, it is attractive, where there are plenty of job opportunities. The whole region is economically progressive, which is reflected, among other things, in the demand for housing. In addition, it is only about an hour from here to Prague, where some locals also work.
Interest in old apartments is growing. Along with it is their price
The lack of housing in Prague is also reflected in the market of older flats. In the second quarter, there were only about four and a half thousand of them on offer, last year at the same time about 7,500, the development company reports.
At the same time, the average price of older flats has already exceeded one hundred thousand crowns per square meter, and is therefore only about ten thousand crowns lower than that of new flats. Last year, this price remained at less than 90,000 crowns at the end of June. For example, four years ago it was only about sixty thousand. According to Marcel Soural from Trigema, the future can be expected to increase the price of real estate in particular. Rising housing prices will become more gradual.
The server Bezrealitky.cz also reported that the expected discount is not coming yet. According to him, the average price of older flats in the Czech Republic rose by 1.1 percent during the first second quarter compared to the previous quarter. This is shown by the data on direct sales through their website.
Of course, customers also know about even lower prices for older apartments. their growing popularity can be well observed, for example, in the sale of older apartments in the capital.
That is why there are more older flats that are offered for sale in housing estates. Of the 60 percent in the offer of older flats in recent months, those in Prague 4, 5, 9 and 10, ie parts of the city where more characteristic housing estate construction is characteristic, such as the South Town, the Garden City, Hostivař or Černý Most .
On the contrary, the center of Prague accounts for only about a fifth of older apartments offered for sale. Overall, the lowest offer of older flats is then characterized by characteristic older apartment or residential districts – these are Prague 6 and 7. Together, these account for only 10 percent of all flats offered.
The prices of flats in Prague are not moving, but the expectations of sellers are growing
And for how much do you currently buy an apartment in Prague? The average price per square meter of an apartment in Prague has remained at the same values for 11 months. Since last August, it is still slightly over CZK 80,000. As shown by Reas real estate report, which uses the Atlas price service to map the real estate market in the Czech Republic based on verified data from the real estate cadastre, while the actual sale price of an apartment in Prague is consistently the same, but the expectations of sellers advertising their apartments on some larger.
Currently, this value has reached CZK 104,382 per square meter and is still growing. This means that current sellers expect a price 25% higher than they will stay in the end.
However, it cannot be said that prices remained at the same values throughout Prague. If one would like to buy an apartment in the center of Prague, one pays about 120 thousand crowns per square meter. The cheapest housing units can then be found in Prague 9, where the price in June will drop to an average of 73 thousand crowns per square meter.
“It cannot be expected that apartment prices in Prague will rise again in the coming months. For example, in Prague 2, apartment prices have risen by 18 percent in the last year, which is mainly due to investment income from short-term leases, which, however, can no longer be fully expected in the current situation. Selling an apartment with a price of more than CZK 100,000 per square meter will be much more complicated in the coming months, ”said Michal Makoš, co-founder of Reas.