Houses in Prague and their prices

In Prague there are many areas predominantly covered by villas and family houses, they make us approximately one third of the city area. In attractive areas close to the centre very few new villas and family houses are constructed because there are not enough free plots of land available. City development plan does not allow to build up many areas of greenery within the city limits. So the new family houses are either built in place of older houses that had been torn down, close to the city´s administrative border or in districts Prague West and Prague East.

Pre war houses and villas have been built either in „classical“ style with roof tiles or very often with flat roof in the architectural style called functionalism. Prague was one of several cities in Europe where this style was most common between the wars, the other countries being Denmark, Germany, France and Estonia.

Layout of old houses and villas in Prague. Most of those houses have several separate apartments that are entered from the main staicase. In most cases they have 2 larger apartment and one small under the roof. Typical plots of land are 400 – 800 sq. m. Villas whose concept is to provide living for just one family, with large entrance hall, staircase, perhaps a gallery, social area on the first floor and bedrooms on the second, are less common. These have mostly belonged to wealthier citizens. This type of old villas you can find mainly in Prague 6 in places like Orechovka, Hanspaulka, Stresovice and also in the diplomatic quarter Bubenec. In Prague 5 mainly on the southern slopes of the hill Strahov, Hrebenky, Santoska. You can also find luxury pre war villas in Prague 4 – Podoli, Branik and Hodkovicky.

Prices. Nice family house or villa in reasonably good condition you can buy in Prague for price up to one mil. euro, closer to the city border you can buy quality house for half million euro. Outside Prague in central Bohemia, still in good reach of Prague, you can buy a good house for 250 000 euro.

Houses in Czech Republic and their prices

Family houses and villas that are situated to the south of Prague are in most cases surrounded by very picturesque landscape, with hills, forests etc. Houses to the north of Prague are mainly in the flat agricultural landscape with very few hills or forests. The region to the north of Prague is also largely industrialised. The chemical and automotive industry concentrated in towns like Kralupy, Neratovice, Mlada Boleslav means that there is more demand and the prices are often higher than of similar houses to the south of Prague.

When buying houses it is important to keep in mind good transport connection. If you intend to drive to work in Prague every day you should either buy a house in the direction where motorways are not overloaded during rush hour, or select a place with railway connection. Usually the city trains go the one of the railway stations in the very centre every 20 minutes and if your home is not further from the city boundries than 30 kilometers, you shall get to Prague in less than 20 minutes.

The cheapest houses in Czech republic are in northern industrial regions of Bohemia – in such towns as Most, Chomutov, Usti nad Labem and also in norther Moravia around Ostrava. In these industrial towns you can also find quite many pre war villas that were built for the owners of the factories. These are usually very good quality architecture and materials and cheap at the same time. The problem is that in those days the factory owners had a strange habit of buildig their residences within couple hundred meters from their factories. This seriously undermines their value now and very often they are also pretty neglected.

Very nice pre-war villa in neglected condition can be bought in northern Bohemia for below 200 000 euro, average second hand house can be bought there for even half the price.