The prices of apartments in the Czech Republic continue to decrease.

Prague - Information coming from the domestic real estate market indicates a continuing decline in apartment prices. According to one real estate server monitoring prices of more than 67,000 properties, the current average price of an apartment in the Czech Republic is 1.7 million crowns. This is about 14 percent less than in January.
    The most significant price drop occurred in Prague. A square meter there in April cost an average of 58,666 crowns, which is 7.2 percent less than in January. "Prague prices are clearly the highest in the whole Czech Republic and there was still room for reducing prices here. Another reason is that at the beginning of the year, some developers offered additional discounts on the apartments they were selling, and the prices of older properties also went down," stated the director of the portal, Jan Štěp.
    The latest figures from the Czech Statistical Office concerning apartment prices pertain to the first quarter of 2010. Compared to the last quarter of 2009, prices decreased by 1.3 percent from January to March, according to the statisticians. In Prague, offering prices for housing fell by 0.7 percent. In the regions outside Prague, they decreased by 1.8 percent.
    Below the threshold of 20,000 crowns per square meter are Ústí nad Labem and Ostrava. Conversely, above 30,000 crowns per square meter, the average price for an apartment in April was paid not only in Prague but also in Karlovy Vary and Brno.
    In the prices of market rents, the differences in domestic cities are much smaller than those in apartment sale prices. For the most common apartment of 60 square meters, the highest commercial rent in April was in Prague, where it averaged 12,992 crowns per month. For the smallest amount, it was possible to rent a similarly sized apartment in Ostrava, which costs around 8,573 crowns per month.