PRICES of apartments in Bratislava have been decreasing for several months, Martin Lazík of the National Association of Real Estate Agencies of Slovakia (NARKS) told the Sme daily in mid-March. He said that February was not an exception and that he expects this trend will continue.
Statistics from real estate agencies of offer prices, which include old as well as new apartments, indicate that prices in Bratislava have decreased by 6 to 13 percent over the last six months. Since developers have not significantly cut prices of apartments in their new projects during the first two months of 2009, old apartments have become even cheaper than the overall numbers imply.
Everything indicates that the decline during the full first quarter of 2009 will mimic the decline between the third and fourth quarters of 2008. But when predicting the movement of prices, the locality and condition of the apartment should be taken into consideration, Lazík said.
Two to three-room apartments in the capital’s Old Town are the least hit by the drop in sales prices, when their price decreased by roughly €100 per square metre from last September to this February. Offer prices for studio apartments in Bratislava’s third district (Nové Mesto, Rača and Vajnory) reported the biggest drop across Bratislava, down by about €330 per square metre.
According to Lazík, prices of studios and one-room apartments are the most sensitive to price changes because when buying an apartment it is not the price per square metre but rather the total price which a client must pay for the whole apartment that is decisive.
