Bratislava is changing its skyline. (source: SME - Jozef Jakubčo)
The latest sales of new flats in Bratislava and an expected drop in interest rates indicate a revival of the Slovak capital’s market. The experts of BuiltMind, a startup devoted to the data monitoring of the real estate market in the capital city, expect the Bratislava market to mimic the Prague market to some extent.
“In the Czech Republic, the sale of flats have been rising since the end of 2022,” said Martin Decký, CEO of BuiltMind, as cited by the TASR newswire. He adds that the decline in interest rates will lead to a similar growth in sales in the Slovak capital. “While in 2023 public flat sales in Bratislava averaged over 200 units per quarter, by the end of 2024 they could reach 400 to 600 units.”
BuiltMind
Slovaks Martin Decký and Peter Kanoš started the tech startup BuiltMind with the mission of driving the shift to data-driven decision-making in real estate.
“We’ve worked in the industry for several years and we noticed the same patterns again and again – data wasn’t easily available and the decision-makers were hence forced to use intuition,” they write on their website.
Their first prototype was made at Harvard University and they are currently operating in the US and Europe. Their team consists of domain experts in both real estate and data science.
The revival of Bratislava’s residential real estate market has already been indicated by data from the end of 2023, when sales in new buildings grew by 58 percent in the last quarter of the year compared to the average for the year.
Based on the tech startup’s data, the average offer price of apartments fell slightly in the last quarter of 2023. The price per square metre (m2) has come down to around €4,850.
“The decline was mainly due to new projects entering the market,” Decký explained, adding that market fundamentals remain unchanged this year as well. “Active projects, rather than directly lowering prices, provided more motivating benefits for buyers, such as guaranteed interest rates or equipment bonuses.”
Decký attributed the slowdown in sales to project delays while the market supply is steady. Nevertheless, the startup expects the gradual reduction in interest rates to lead to a slight increase in prices, and they also expect a gradual retreat from discounts.
“At BuiltMind, we predict that a gradual reduction in rates will lead to a moderate price increase - to an average level of around €4,900 per m2 in about half a year, and to a level of roughly €5,000 to €5,100 per m2 by the end of the year,” said Decký.
The fall in interest rates, expected in June, could also contribute to kick-starting the real estate market, BuiltMind forecasts.
Along with the increase in sales in Bratislava’s new residential real estate, BuiltMind expects an increase in supply this year. At the end of last year, buyers were particularly interested in larger flats in Bratislava, with four-bedroom flats particularly selling well, according to real estate experts.
“However, with the return of the investment appetite on the market in 2024, we can expect a gradual return to a bigger interest in smaller flats,” said Decký.
