Brno house prices soar: Is the city still more affordable than Prague?

Czechia's second-largest city has seen surging rents amid high demand and sales of new apartments, suggesting prices are catching up with the capital.

Thomas Smith

Written by Thomas Smith Published on 30.01.2025 13:25:00 (updated on 30.01.2025) Reading time: 2 minutes

House prices in Brno soared to record highs in 2024, driven by a sharp increase in demand for new apartments. The average price of a new apartment in the Moravian capital reached CZK 131,300 per square meter, with the average (new-build) crossing the CZK 8 million mark for the first time in history.

However, with prices in Prague also recently surging—purchase prices rose around 15 percent in 2024—Czechia’s second-largest city remains considerably cheaper to rent or buy real estate compared to the capital. 

This raises the question: taking salaries into account, are house prices in Brno generally more affordable for expats?

The costs of buying and renting

According to real estate specialist site Realitymix.cz, renting an average 60-square-meter apartment in Brno costs CZK 19,600 monthly as of January 2025. This is in contrast with Prague, where you’ll need to pay CZK 24,962 per month for the same size. 

When it comes to buying, similar is true. A 60-square-meter apartment costs CZK 8.3 million in the capital, whereas in Brno this is much lower, at CZK 6.7 million. New-build apartments in Brno are catching up with Prague prices, though: they cost around CZK 160,000 per square meter—”only” CZK 30,000 more than in Brno.

Where do you get a better deal?

Based on the above figures, renting and buying property is clearly cheaper in Brno than Prague—however, you earn less outside the capital. The average gross monthly salary in Prague is CZK 55,850 according to the latest figures from the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO). 

No official CZSO data on average salaries in Brno exists, though the region it lies in—South Moravia—has an average gross wage of CZK 44,798. As the capital of the region, Brno’s salaries are likely higher, though not at the same level as Prague's—around CZK 50,000.

This means that a person on an average Brno salary would spend 39 percent of their gross monthly wage on rent alone. Compare this to Prague, where somebody would need to spend almost 45 percent of an average wage on a 60-square-meter apartment.

When it comes to buying an apartment, a person from Brno would need to spend just over 11 years’ worth of their salary alone to buy a new home. In Prague, this stands at over 12 years.

The verdict

Despite having lower salaries, Brno remains a more cost-effective place to live for the average expat, factoring in the latest real estate and wage price data. 

You’d have to go back to 2016 to find the last time that so many new apartments were sold in Brno, underpinned by rising demand and falling mortgage rates. Similar is true for Prague, where new-apartment sales shot up by 80 percent year on year. 

This suggests that demand is high, which will likely push up housing costs. Trends from 2024—when both regions saw double-digit growth in rents—are set to continue in both cities this year, albeit at a more moderate pace of 5 to 10 percent.

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