Prices of flats in Olomouc have been rising significantly in recent years, making them among the highest in the Czech Republic. The average price of an apartment in a new building is already between CZK 45,000 and CZK 65,000 per square meter. New flats in Olomouc thus cost several million crowns, which is already too high a price for part of the city’s population. This follows from the Concept of Affordable and Social Housing of the Statutory City of Olomouc for the years 2021 to 2027, which will be discussed by the City Council next week.
Flats in Olomouc, which are hundreds of thousands, are constantly becoming more expensive. For example, from the end of 2015 to the end of 2019, according to data from Deloitte ČR, their average market prices increased by 46 percent to CZK 42,400 per square meter. Significantly higher prices of flats were reported only by Prague with 86,200 crowns per meter and Brno with CZK 62,400. České Budějovice, Hradec Králové and Liberec also had slightly higher apartment prices than Olomouc, with CZK 43,300 to CZK 46,600 per square meter.
According to the authors of the concept, the price of the flats is determined mainly by the location, the size of the apartment building, the composition of the flats and the architectural and construction quality of the project. “The average prices of new buildings in 2019 were around CZK 50,000 per square meter. The price of an apartment per square meter depends not only on the size of the apartment, but also on age,” the concept states. At the same time, building land prices are rising in Olomouc. More expensive building plots are in the area designated for family houses, plots for apartment buildings are usually a bit cheaper.
Houses in Olomouc have an average age of 52.2 years and this indicator is increasing. Compared to the same cities, only the North Bohemian cities of Liberec and Ústí nad Labem are worse off. The share of flats built before 1970 is high in Olomouc, which makes up more than two-fifths of apartment buildings. According to the concept, their owners will have to invest more in the renovation and reconstruction of houses in the coming years or to provide compensation, for example in the form of new housing construction.
Housing construction in Olomouc came to life in previous years. Several large housing projects are being prepared, built or completed in the city. Developers are building apartments in the Slavonín district, and others have been built on the premises of the former telecommunications company SPT Telecom on Tabulový vrch. Sochorova stavební is building more than 300 flats on the site of former barracks in the center of Olomouc.
The developer Link City Centrum NS will build over 200 flats in two stages in the area of former malthouses and freezers. However, due to high construction work prices, the project of the luxury residential district of Šantovka Living, in which there were to be 200 flats, was suspended. The developer decided to return the money to people who had already paid in advance. According to the company, it is not yet possible to carry out the construction.
In 2019, housing construction in the Olomouc Region increased by 2.3 percent. However, since last spring, the construction of flats has been significantly slowed down by the coronavirus pandemic. For the whole of 2020, housing construction in the region fell by 8.2 percent, and construction of 1,917 flats began. In the first half of this year, the construction of 800 flats was started, a year-on-year increase of 8.9 percent.
Source: CTK
