The costs of a completed family house increased by 3 percent last year

Prague - The average costs of building a family house rose by three percent last year to 3.4 million crowns. For completed apartments in residential buildings, costs increased by five percent to 2.2 million crowns. The average size of an apartment remained almost unchanged, while the size of family houses stayed at 92 m², and the size of apartments in residential buildings increased by one square meter to 52 m². This is according to data from the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO).

"Last year, a total of 16,365 new residential buildings were constructed, in which 28,569 apartments were completed. More than half of the apartments were completed in family houses. A total of 51 billion crowns was spent on their construction. The cost of building one apartment was 3.4 million crowns," said Petra Cuřínová, head of the construction statistics department at CZSO.

Family houses were most commonly built in a 4+1 layout, with smaller apartments being in very low numbers. The living area ranged from 20 m² to 500 or 700 m², averaging 92 m². The construction of one family house took an average of 3.5 years, but individual houses were built in periods ranging from half a year to several decades.

Family houses had load-bearing structures made of masonry materials in 82 percent of cases, but in recent years, according to Cuřínová, there has been an increased interest in wooden constructions. The provision of electricity and water supply is now considered to be at a hundred percent, and therefore CZSO does not monitor these data. Almost two-fifths of the family houses completed last year had gas connections mainly through the gas pipeline network, and 94 percent of the houses had central heating.

A total of 303 residential buildings were completed last year, housing 9,264 apartments. Their construction cost 21 billion crowns. "There is great variability among individual completed residential buildings, and differences in construction indicators from year to year are influenced by the structure of the projects. Relatively few residential buildings are being constructed," Cuřínová added.

The average investment cost for building one apartment was 2.2 million crowns, and on average, there were 31 apartments per house. Buildings ranged from small apartment blocks with four apartments to structures with several hundred apartments. The apartments in residential buildings were primarily of the 2+1 category, while around ten percent of the apartments completed last year were of the 4+1 size or more.

The construction time for a residential building ranged from a few months for so-called container houses to more than ten years. On average, a residential building was constructed in just under three years. The load-bearing structure was mostly masonry. Nearly three-fifths of the houses were completed without a gas supply. Heating was predominantly central, and it was mostly house-based with a boiler in the building rather than central remote heating.