Russians are selling off property en masse in Karlovy Vary
Radio Prague cites a typical example from the Czech publication Lidové noviny: a Russian businessman bought a residential building from the Karlovy Vary city hall ten years ago, paying 60 million crowns (2.5 million euros). The building underwent major renovations, and now the property is being offered for sale at 200 million crowns. Unsuccessfully. The chances of finding a buyer for that amount are statistically close to zero.
Homeowners often see the problem not in the price, but in the real estate agency itself. It is not uncommon for the same property to be listed by five or more realtors, says Marcel Bajgar, director of the agency M&M Reality.
In Karlovy Vary, about 700 apartments and more than 130 houses are currently offered for sale. According to experts, nearly half of them have owners with Russian passports.
Most often, apartments with an area of about 90 square meters, located in the old development of the resort zone or adjacent to it, are sold at inflated prices: owners ask from 7 to 16 million crowns (from 280 to 680 thousand euros).
In this regard, the decline in real estate prices in Karlovy Vary will continue this year. Apartments whose owners are not ready to come to terms with the real market situation will remain on sale, experts note.
According to the Czech Ministry of the Interior, the number of Russians with permanent or temporary residence in Karlovy Vary is decreasing. At the end of last year, 1,654 Russians permanently lived in the Czech resort; five years ago, this figure was 240 people higher. Some claim the city is small and Russians simply got bored there. According to others, neither Mariánské Lázně nor Karlovy Vary have the level of services that the "Russian elite" demand.
Jan Kopal, spokesman for the Karlovy Vary city hall, believes that many Russians, after the ruble's fall, European sanctions against Russia, and the crisis in Ukraine, concluded that the money invested in Karlovy Vary is not bringing them much benefit. Real estate prices are not rising as they would like, and selling elite housing is not so easy.
The domestic political aspect is also important: the Russian authorities are seeking to bring fellow businessmen back from Europe to Russia so that they invest money there, Lidové noviny quotes Alexander Miziuk, owner of one of the largest real estate agencies in Karlovy Vary. "Previously, Russians came to Karlovy Vary to stroll and socialize. Now everyone speaks quietly, they are getting rid of real estate because they have problems in Russia itself," the realtor claims.
According to his Czech colleague from M&M Reality, Petra Baboučková, the interest of Russian-speaking investors in the Czech Republic in recent years has been limited to Prague and Brno.
Russian citizens began massively buying real estate in Karlovy Vary at the beginning of the century, with demand so exceeding supply that some buyers were willing to pay up to 6,000 euros per square meter. According to locals, at one time Russian-speaking investors owned nearly 80 percent of real estate in Karlovy Vary.
What caused such interest in the Czech resort? First, it is historically conditioned. Tsar Peter I and writer Alexei Tolstoy visited Karlovy Vary. Soviet leaders, such as Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov, also went there for vacations. The water is truly healing, the atmosphere is calm, and for Russians, the language barrier is low.