Developers in Belgium have to wait six months to collect the permits they need to begin building an apartment building. In Prague, where a lack of new apartments is driving prices up at a shocking pace, they have to wait an average of seven years. That’s according to a study carried out by the Center for Economic and Market Analysis (CETA). CTK quotes its director of research Aleš Rod as saying that Prague is unable to keep up with its growing population.
“While officially, the number of residents between 2006 and 2016 grew by 10 percent, the number of building permits issued over the same period fell by 55 percent. Long-term administrative approval procedures are blocking development projects worth roughly 40,000 new flats.” The news agency writes that in the first six months of 2018, construction companies began work on 1,161 flats. That’s 70 percent fewer than in 2008. Other other hand, prices are up from the first half of 2017 by 24 percent.
