21 RESIDENTIAL MARKET 22 RESIDENTIAL MARKET In 2016, 6,650 new apartments were sold in Prague, which is a 5.1% increase; in Brno there was even a 50% progress. The average price of available apartments in Prague rose to 75,520 CZK/m 2, which is a year-on-year increase of 17.4%. The top-functioning sub-segment in the residential market are family houses. Apartment houses are only built in a minimum extent. There are still problems in the functioning of the Association of Unit Owners (AUO). The residential market is a crucial part of the lives of best. All forms are essential for the functioning of the the population and economy of the state. The balanced market, and each of them has its own specifics, advan- and proper functioning of all its parts is very important, tages, disadvantages, risks and benefits. including owner-occupied housing in family houses, own- The best functioning forms in our residential market er-occupied apartment housing, cooperative apartments include the ownership of family houses and cooperative and housing in rented apartments. housing. Rentals and housing co-ownership is compli- Unfortunately, the government's cated by poor legislation and lengthy and unpredictable approach to the housing sector court decisions. New housing construction can be based on the latest approved assessed similarly. Family houses are being built across "Rental housing is distorted by social bene- state housing concept or other the board throughout the country, mostly individually. fits. The state was unable to process rental pricing maps." materials and laws is only a However, almost no new apartment buildings were built motley series of isolated inter- in recent years, with some exceptions. Petr Němeček, Hypoteční banka ventions in housing without a With a 21% share of rental housing, the Czech Republic long-term vision. One example is lies in the block of Eastern European countries. The the steering towards ownership highest proportion of ownership housing is in Romania, housing first, and then switching Slovakia, Lithuania, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria and to rental without a deeper analy- Poland. On the contrary, the most economically advanced sis of preferences, without being countries of Europe have the highest proportion of rental "The rental housing segment is characterized accompanied by any meaningful by tenants' lack of information about their housing, with Germany, Austria, Denmark, Great Britain, measures, or the long-term fail- rights and obligations, as well as the low culti- France and the Netherlands in the forefront. The EU aver- ure to address social housing. vation of the market by real estate offices." age is approximately 30% of rental housing.1 Our politicians' opinions of new Tomáš Běhounek, bnt attorney-at-law housing construction at a na- The Czech housing fund consists mostly of family houses tional and especially local level (about 1.55 million houses), of which 1.15 million are appear similarly confused. stand-alone houses, 133 thousand are duplexes, and 257 thousand houses are terraced houses. More than 5.05 mil- There is lately no point in lead- lion inhabitants live in these houses. The family house fund ing the popular discussion of which type of housing is and the number of households living in them continues to the right one, whether ownership housing or rentals are grow. We can expect this trend to continue in the future. GRAPH In terms of apartment use, the distribution of the population in the Czech Republic is strongly leaning Source: Central Europe towards ownership housing. Distribution of the Czech population according to type of housing, 2017: Holding a.s. from ČSÚ 3 % Family house 21 % Housing co-ownership 44 % Cooperative apartments 9 % Rental housing Other 23 % 1 Source: Eurostat 2014. 23 GRAPH Czech population age distribution. Source: Statistisches Bundesamt 2009 100+ 90 0–26 years 80 26–40 years 70 60 40–100 years 50 men women 40 40 30 26 20 10 0 100 80 60 40 20 věk 20 40 60 80 100 thousands thousands In contrast, the owned and co-owned housing segment will of young people in the age group that usually buys its own not expand significantly after many years of saturation, and housing is steadily decreasing. These used to be people it will reach roughly a quarter of the total housing fund. around 30 years of age, now we can see a decrease in population in people around 40 years of age. Approximately 10,000 apartments are modernized and about 25,000 new apartments are built in our country In 2013–2016 (QIII), a total of 92,656 apartment units every year. New construction consists of the individual were built in the Czech Republic, with about 25,338 construction of family houses, very few apartment units in apartment buildings. This shows that mostly buildings are built in this relationship. Prague and Brno family houses are built. are the only exceptions. However, new apartments are From the total number of about 6.2 thousand monitored lacking even in these cities. municipalities, the strongest construction following Approximately 19,000 apartments were built in Prague Prague and Brno took place in Plzeň, Ostrava, Olomouc, between 2013 and 2016, of which about 13,000 were České Budějovice, Pardubice, Liberec, Opava, Hradec built within development projects, which is a very small Králové and Kladno. Increased construction can also number. As expected, this had to have repercussions be seen in many smaller municipalities in the suburban on real estate prices, which are rising due to a lack zones of these cities, such as Brandýs nad Labem, Neh- of suitable real estate and a change in the orientation vizdy, Jesenice u Prahy, Říčany, Hostivice, Slavkov u Brna, of developers from cheaper to more expensive projects. Šlapanice, Moravany, etc. New construction in Prague is insufficient to meet the ASSOCIATION OF UNIT OWNERS AND HOUSING housing needs resulting from population growth. Since COOPERATIVES 2011, this is about 30,000 mostly adult citizens. The In previous Trend Report editions, we focused on the population growth in Prague is mainly due to the positive pitfalls of the Association of (housing) Unit Owners (SVJ). migration balance. The population is increasing most For many clients this may be a reason to focus on the in Prague 6, 5 and 8, and decreasing in the city center. family house segment. Now we will try to compare the Association of Unit Owners and cooperatives, if only Demographic change is one of the most important factors because they have similar or common problems. affecting the apartment and house market. The number TABLE Demographic evolution in the Czech Republic in 2017–2033. Source: ČSÚ AGE GROUPS (2017) AGE GROUPS (2033) AGE TOTAL % % WOMEN AGE TOTAL % % WOMEN 40+ 5 654 628 53.7 52.7 40+ 6 301 695 61 52.3 26_39 2 121 761 20.1 48.7 26_39 1 484 205 14.4 48.5 <26 2 759 393 26.2 48.7 <26 2 537 065 24.6 48.6 total 10 535 782 100 50.9 total 10 322 965 100 50.9 GRAPH Distribution of new apartment construction in the Czech Republic in the period 2011–2015. Source: Central Europe Holding a.s. from ČSÚ 6 % Family houses Communal 25 % Cooperative 65 % Commercial housing cooperatives 2 % 2 % Other 24 The extortion of payments (debt) in co-ownership payments SVJs registered in the Czech Republic. Most of them for management and maintenance is a growing problem. are in Prague (10.8 thousand) and South Moravia (6.6 Cohabitation with unadaptable, irresponsible owners of thousand), with the smallest number in the Liberec and units or cooperative members also poses a problem. Pardubice Region. Their total housing fund contains over 1.5 million apartments. In Prague, most Associations Unfortunately, the new Civil Code or Business Corpora- are in Prague 10 (1.4 thousand), followed by Prague 11, tions Act does not give other members of the associa- 12, and 2. There are over 400,000 apartment units in tion or their statutory body many options for solving Prague that are owned or co-owned. these problems. Cooperatives and the SVJ do not have priority in satisfying claims against their members, and The number of owned apartments registered in the debtors usually have multiple creditors, leaving Prague real estate register grew evenly by about 35,000 no resources for the cooperatives or the SVJ. units per year. It's interesting that in addition to large Czech and Moravian cities, there is a considerable Courts work very slowly and often see these law suits amount of SVJs in Trutnov (almost 1,000), Jihlava, Znojmo as unreasonable, where the strong SVJ/cooperative is and Frýdek-Místek. The privatization of municipal and suing its weak member. The fact that it is the member's former corporate apartments contributed to the increase fundamental duty and responsibility to fulfill his obliga- in the number of owned or co-owned apartments the tions has not yet become commonplace. The law does most. This privatization usually significantly affected the not allow penalties, and laws deal with the transition functioning of the market and virtually stopped new con- of debt when transferring ownership to a unit or share struction of residential buildings in many municipalities. unclearly, there are a number of interpretations. A legislative adjustment that would ensure full payment The largest amount of owned apartments in Associa- of the cooperative's and SVJ's receivables with the tions is a maximum of 40 units (57%). Only 12% of forced sale of units, or prevent the transfer of shares apartments are in an SVJ that has more than 100 units. or units without fulfilling all In terms of the depth of the market, the situation of obligations, would be helpful.