Svoboda & Williams’ Market Report: Quality Properties Increasingly Popular As Their Prices Rise

“Quality became the key factor in successful real estate transactions in the second half of last year,” says Prokop Svoboda, owner of Svoboda & Williams. His words are also backed up by statistics: current demand has increased by 22% compared to the first half of last year, and prices have increased at a moderate pace. Prices per square meter for new builds increased by 0.9% in the year-on-year comparison, but the growth in resales was more significant, rising by 2.7%. “The stock of interesting properties on the market is more limited than before, and at the same time buyers are more choosy and take longer to decide. Superior facilities and excellent locations are increasingly important variables,” adds Svoboda. 

This year, clients of Svoboda & Williams paid on average CZK 157,258 per square meter for new builds and CZK 141,248 for resales. In contrast, the average area of the properties sold was smaller. “The biggest decrease in average areas was recorded for two-bedroom and three-bedroom layouts, while buyers were most interested in one-bedroom units,” explains Kryštof Kušiak, analyst at Svoboda & Williams. The average size of an apartment sold in Prague in the second half of the year was 85.2 sq. m., which is 9.5% lower than in the previous period. “The smaller area of the properties sold is the main reason for the decrease in the average price for an apartment, which is 7.7% lower than in the first half of the year,“ says Kušiak. 

After previous periods of fluctuation, rental housing prices in Prague stabilized in the second half of last year, and have now settled at an average of CZK 39,088 per month, which is an increase of one percent. “The smallest apartments (one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms) in the wider center of Prague were the most rented layouts,” says Kryštof Kušiak. “We received a significantly higher number of inquiries from Czech clients after last summer,” states David Šimeček, head of residential rentals. “The most luxurious apartments used to be rented by expats, but Czechs have already caught up with them even in the most expensive segment,” he concludes.

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How the Svoboda & Williams Market Report Is Created

The analyses in the Market Report are based on sales and rental transaction data generated by the activities of the Svoboda & Williams real estate agency. These figures are supplemented by data on property sales obtained from the Cadastre of Real Estate with similar parameters to the monitored sample. The Market Report works exclusively with data based on achieved prices, additionally taking into account the price of parking and the proportion of the exterior. This methodology uses a specially developed algorithm to recalculate the exterior area that progressively reduces this area and takes into account the ratio of the interior to the exterior. The Market Report is published four times a year. It compiles data from the last two quarters and compares real estate market movements over two consecutive half-year periods. 

Another useful tool for a more accurate interpretation of the rental market is the Rental Price Index by S&W + VŠE, an analytical tool developed by Svoboda & Williams in cooperation with the Faculty of Informatics of the University of Economics in Prague. The source of the data for this index are the actually achieved rents for apartments offered by Svoboda & Williams, and it compares the development of the rental market on a semi-annual basis.