Last year, purchasing a 70-square meter flat cost a Czech citizen 13.3 average gross annual salaries. After an increase of 1.1 average salaries since 2020, the Czech Republic ranks as the country with the least affordable housing in Europe.

According to the Deloitte Property Index 2022 study results, Slovakia is second to last, where citizens spend 12.8 average gross annual salaries to buy a home.

“In a comparison of selected European capitals, only Amsterdam is worse off than Prague, where the cost of owning a home is 13.3 average gross annual salaries. The Dutch spend 17.7 average salaries on apartments in their capital,” said Miroslav Linhart, a senior partner at financial consultancy Deloitte.

The average transaction price of new homes has risen in 18 of the 21 countries analyzed. In Hungary, the strongest increase, up to 24 percent. The Czech Republic experienced the fourth-highest increase globally, at 14.4 percent. Declines were recorded in Latvia (minus 1.3 percent), Slovenia (minus 3.8 percent), and Spain (minus 8.5 percent).

Last year, the average transaction price of new apartments in the Czech Republic was EUR 3,342 (CZK 81,929) per square meter. The highest is in Great Britain, EUR 4,905 per sqm, and the lowest is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, EUR 974 per sqm.

Brno, with 22.4 percent, and Prague, with a 20.1 percent increase in the average transaction price for a new apartment, were not far behind, according to Petr Hána, a real estate market expert at Deloitte.

Of all the European cities represented in the study, Ostrava has the lowest prices compared to the national average, with a new apartment costing 58 percent of the national average.

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