Developers in the Czech Republic have started building luxury apartments for rent as well

Prague - Private developers in the Czech Republic are no longer building apartments just for sale, but have started to build luxury housing for rent as well. This is reported by today's Hospodářské noviny (HN). Rental apartments were previously built only by cities, mostly with the help of state subsidies and in the category of social housing.
    Tenants can move into the apartments of two luxury housing projects at the beginning of next year. The CTR Group is building 269 rental apartments in Prague at Albertov, while Magnum Living is constructing 61 luxury apartments in the Anenské terasy project in the center of Brno. Finep, one of the largest development companies in the country, is also preparing to build rental apartments.
    According to the newspaper, the projects are aimed at managers sent to the Czech Republic for a limited period. Their companies contribute tens of thousands of crowns monthly to their rental housing. The rents in Albertov will reflect this. For a square meter of a furnished apartment, the price is expected to be between 390 to 430 crowns per month, and for a square meter of an apartment equipped only with a kitchen, the rent will range from 370 to 410 crowns.
    Real estate experts consider the introduction of rental apartments to the market a bold idea. "I think it will be quite difficult for the project managers to maintain the apartments for rent," said HN Mark Batt from Cushman and Wakefield. Other developers are not very interested in building rental apartments for now, the newspaper stated. "The return on such an investment is about 20 to 25 years," said HN Daniel Daško from the real estate and development company Ekospol.
    According to Batt, other private projects with rental apartments will emerge over the next two to three years in smaller cities, where developers have lower margins and the supply of quality apartments is limited.