The last month of 2022 brought a 0.7% decrease in rents compared to the previous month with prices in Budapest sinking by 0.9%, ingatlan.com reports.

The fears of a recession are likely to cool down the red-hot real estate market in CEE countries, Erste specialists expect. According to them, this will be influenced mainly by surging inflation, the cost of credit and cooling down of the borrowing, and shrinking of the disposable household income which will also worsen the borrowing appetite in the coming periods. There is a change in the respondent’s behaviour too. Whereas respondents from Poland, Hungary and Croatia are open to buying or building a house, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians are less inclined to do so, say Erste experts in their recent special report.

Czech bank Česká spořitelna is initiating the construction of more affordable rental housing in Czech towns with a population of over 10,000. The bank plans to launch the first trio of projects with 250 flats in cooperation with three town halls this year or in early 2023. Rental housing in such projects should be at least one-fifth cheaper, E15 reported on the bank's new plans today.  

The number of completed flats in Slovakia has fallen year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022.  Construction around Bratislava has also been on a downward trend for several quarters. However, three Slovak regions report the opposite trend with a dynamic increase in the number of completed apartments. The recovery can be observed in the number of flats under construction, according to data from the Statistical Office of Slovakia, reality.trend.sk reports.

Actual sales prices of real estate in the Slovak Republic reached high growth at the beginning of the year, mainly due to rising sales prices of new houses and flats, the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic announced.

Czechs are still afraid of cooperative housing. It is the preferred form of ownership for only 3% of those who plan to buy a flat or house, while 13% do not even consider it when buying a property. However, due to the rise in mortgage rates and property prices, cooperative housing is more affordable and thus 22% of respondents have recently improved their opinion on it, according to a survey by Komerční banka and Modrá pyramida, a building society.

The average price of an older apartment in the Czech Republic exceeded CZK 90,000 per sqm for the first time in Q1 2022, according to a study by the real estate group European Housing Services (EHS). In Prague, an older apartment costs more than 120,000 per sqm and in Brno, it is over 90,000. Rents have returned to prices before the coronavirus crisis, the Czech News Agency quotes the EHS report.

The Czech government plans to introduce subsidy programs that could significantly help fund housing for refugees. In addition to funding from the state budget, money from the National Recovery Plan is also being considered. The use of the money depends on the approval of all EU-27 countries, Czech daily E15.cz reports.

Private equity fund Főnix wants to take control of a financial investment firm that manages the construction of several hundred homes and office towers within the BudaPart mixed-use project in Budapest.

Heimstaden continues to invest in its portfolio in the Czech Republic. This year it will spend almost two and a half billion crowns on thermal insulation, new projects and repairs, the company announced.