Tiny studio apartments are now trending in Prague

How to beat the increasingly rising apartment prices in Prague?

Think small!

Like the infamous tiny studio apartments in space-starved metropolises like New York City, 1+kk flats – a single room with a kitchen corner – are now trending in the Czech capital.

Yes, with apartment prices in some areas of Prague up 50% year-on-year, the number of square meters per flat, and the number of smaller flats sold, are both on the upswing as 2018 comes to a close.

How small are they getting? Even tiny flats must meet legal standards: according to Czech law, a room needs to be a minimum of 16 meters squared to be considered a residential apartment. And now, real estate agencies are confirming sales of flats as small as the legal minimum.

“We also mediated the sale of an older flat with an area of 19 square meters,” said Maxima Reality’s Goran Andonov.

From a development perspective, tiny flats mean additional costs: more bathrooms and shared facilities per building. But with the rising per-square-meter apartment prices in Prague, smaller living spaces are becoming an increasingly popular alternative for creative buyers.

“[But] in the last six months, the share has grown slightly to 24 percent.”

Those statements are backed up by data provided by real estate agency Trigema: in the third quarter of 2017, 16.7% of apartments sold in Prague were of the 1+kk variety, but that number is up to 24.4% in the same period of 2018.

That means that next to a 2+kk, the 1+kk is now the most popular kind of flat in Prague.

And it isn’t only students and Prague singles who are seeking small apartments. Senior citizens aiming to have a small living space to maintain have also been increasingly interested in studio flats in Prague.