The number of Czechs renting apartments rose to nearly 13,000 in the second quarter of 2020. That’s 50 percent more than for the same period in 2019 and nearly 40 percent more than at the beginning of the year, according to the web portal Sreality.cz. The most important reason for this is the collapse of the short-term market cause by the coronavirus. Foreign tourists have stopped coming to the Czech capital. This forced thousands of apartment owners who depend on income from platforms like Airbnb to find a replacement source of income. Hendrik Meyer, CEO of Bezealikty, says that he expected rental prices to fall as a result of the pandemic, but that it had been more dramatic than anticipated. He said the average rental rate for Prague flats has fallen from CZK 290 per square meter per month to CZK 276. Meyer says this has slowed the number of people looking for cheap rents beyond the borders of Prague. But he adds that the most likely scenario is that prices return to normal within a year.
