Our Agents on the Market Situation: Clients Mainly Use Their Own Funds to Finance Buys, but Their Behavior Is Still Cautions

"When we look at the mainstream market, which contains properties with lower prices, this segment wasn't very affected and never really was. The reason for this is financing—clients who buy these types of properties overwhelmingly have their own funds. The current decrease in demand is mostly caused by the more complicated availability of mortgages and higher interest rates, which logically doesn't pertain as much to the luxury real estate segment," explains David Martan, managing director of Svoboda & Williams. 
"From my point of view, the market has been more or less stagnant for a few months now. I personally can't recall a client financing a property with a mortgage in the last few months. But the fact that more transactions are concluded without a loan makes the process smoother and swifter," adds Jan Hudcovič, property consultant at Svoboda & Williams.

The premium property market has specific attributes and each client has individual requirements that go beyond normal expectations of a typical sale, all of which distinguishes the segment from the rest of the real estate market. We're therefore seeing higher demand for properties with a distinctive atmosphere or modern properties with cutting-edge technologies. "From my perspective, there are significant properties for sale that are exceptionally interesting, but a discount for them has often not been required." says Hudcovič.

Demand for investment properties has also been registered by Svoboda & Williams, especially for properties with a smaller layout, which clients continue to use as a source of passive income. "When selling a studio apartment, clients are often not interested in the size of the unit, but solely in its price, since they're buying it for business purposes," states Ľubica Kuľčárová, property consultant at Svoboda & Williams.

However, David Martan remains positive about what awaits us next year. "Since the end of the third quarter, we have witnessed a recovery of sorts. The future of the real estate market is no longer as dark as some media may suggest. Of course, the recent situation has also affected us as some clients have been waiting for prices to fall for over a year. But they're beginning to realize that a significant decrease in prices is highly unlikely and if they want to invest, now is the time to do it."