Due to worse housing affordability, Czechs prefer to settle on the outskirts of cities
The Czech National Bank has set stricter conditions for issuing housing loans. Since, as Vinegret.cz notes, this was warned about in advance, many rushed to take out mortgages, and now real estate on the market is sold out a year in advance. Housing prices have meanwhile crept up, making it problematic to buy an apartment in large cities such as Prague or Brno.
Twenty years ago, the same trend of moving to the outskirts of cities was observed, but it was not related to the real estate market situation, but to a fashion for ecological consciousness, says Lenka Kolonovicova from Century 21.
In the first quarter of this year, the most expensive city was Prague – 77,700 crowns per square meter, the cheapest city was Usti nad Labem, where a square meter costs 16,000 crowns.
Compared to last year, real estate prices rose the most in Liberec (by 19.6%), Ceske Budejovice (by 17.9%), and Olomouc (by 12.8%). Real estate prices in Ostrava, on the contrary, fell.