Accolade/Conseq Realitni
Accolade has assumed full control of Karlovarská Business Park by buying out the majority shareholding from its previous owner, the Conseq Realitni fund. Located at the intersection of the D6 motorway and the Prague ring road, the property is made up of four buildings with a total of 19,500 sqm. Conseq Realitni and Accolade bought the property in 2017, with the former retaining a reported 90% stake. The recent transaction was brokered by CBRE. “High demand for industrial and logistics space in and around Prague has led to the rapid growth in premium rents, in some cases up to €7.90/m2/month,” says Vítězslav Doležal (CBRE), citing the average for 5,000 sqm deals. Smaller units are leasing for even more. Vladan Kubovec of Conseq Funds says his company’s success in selling the property so profitably despite the slow market only illustrates the benefit of its conservative approach to property valuations.
Mortgages way down
The Czech residential market has largely become cash-based. E15 reports that by the beginning of spring, 82% of all residential sales were being sold without mortgages. It’s a remarkable turnaround from a year ago, when banks were assisting two-thirds of all buyers to finance their investments. The high point came at the end of summer in 2021, when just 20% of Prague transactions were cash-only and nationwide, the average was 30%. Back then, of course, mortgage rates were hovering around 2%. Today, they’ve exceeded 6% at most banks. It’s widely expected that the mortgage market will begin to pick up beginning this summer though, as the Czech National Bank has dropped some of its strictest restrictions, increasing the pool of potential clients. “The mortgage market is beginning to move,” Jiří Sýkora told E15. “The first reason is that the prices of real estate continue to fall. Another factor that hasn’t begun to be felt yet is that the ČNB has cancelled the DSTI income limit.” Banks were banned for example from making loans whose monthly payments exceeded 50% of the client’s monthly salary.
D Line delayed?
Five months after bids were opened on the tender the second section of the D line metro, Prague still hasn’t picked the winner. Some deputies in the Prague assembly now warn that the delay could mean the new line might not open by 2029. The project has an estimated price tag of CZK 25 billion. “You have to realize that we’re talking about one of the largest infrastructure jobs in the Czech Republic in recent times, so it can understandably take longer to evaluate the bids,” said the Prague transportation company’s spokeswoman Aneta Řehková. The antimonopoly office is studying the bid following a complaint lodged by Metrostav DIZ, which didn’t even submit a bit. Public investments are often delayed because one of the losers contests the results. What’s odd in this case is that Metrostav didn’t even submit a bid.
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