The real estate market is in good shape and is barrelling full speed ahead into the future. The demand and volume of property sales remained strong in the second half of the year, and property prices are rising right alongside them—these are the key trends of Prague's real estate market in the second half of 2024, based on the latest analysis of Svoboda & Williams.
“Demand for premium properties rose dramatically last year. We recorded a higher rate of it than in the record-breaking year of 2021,” proclaims Owner of Svoboda & Williams Prokop Svoboda. “After tepid 2023, last year we brokered almost double the number of transactions,” he adds.
The stock of premium properties can no longer cover the growing demand for them. “This holds true for both high-class real estate on the secondary market and for premium new builds, which have long been lacking in developer portfolios. This has pushed prices upwards toward a more stable growth,” continues Svoboda. In the second half of 2024, clients of Svoboda & Williams paid an average of CZK 167,761 per square meter for new builds and CZK 157,076 per meter square for resale properties. On average, real estate prices increased by 5.4% in the second half of the year and in the year-on-year comparison by 8.6% (H2 2024 vs. H2 2023). “We witnessed a more significant impact on the secondary market, where average prices per m2 increased half-yearly by 6.5% and year-on-year even by 11%,” explains Svoboda & Williams’s analyst, Kryštof Kušiak.
Rental housing prices remained stable in the second half of the year. Compared to the previous half year, they increased by only 1.6% to an average of CZK 40,105 per month. “Over the past several months, it’s become clear that tenants are increasingly moving out of larger apartments in the very center of Prague to more affordable rental properties in the wider city center,” says Kušiak. A total of 66% of all tenants are foreigners. “In the highest price segment (over CZK 55,000/month), however, this figure is going down together with the slashing of expat housing budgets by multinational corporations,” he adds.
Compared to the residential market, the commercial leasing segment remains stagnant. “We perceive the pressure that companies place on their employees to return to working in the office five days per week, which we believe will have a positive effect on the robustness of the market this year,” says Head of Commercial Leasing at Svoboda & Williams Jaroslav Waldhauser. Prague continues to lack new administrative projects of sufficient size and parameters. “Although over 160,000 m2 of new office space is being built in Prague right now, most will be completed in 2027. The office stock, especially in the very center of the city, will remain limited in the months to come, which can lead to a further increase in rents,” concludes Waldhauser.
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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.
