This article is a commentary to the article How to solve housing crisis, which tries to shed some light on a ratio between rents and real salaries in the Czech republic.
A rent shouldn’t be more than 1/3rd of your net monthly salary. It means that an employee would have to make 93 600 CZK gross monthly in Prague. I can solemnly swear, based on my current information, that the only people making that amount of money are programmers. Those who program day and night (While forgetting having something to eat, drinking and visiting a toilet). More is here.
That is the reason why I asked current political parties participating in the forthcoming elections for their statements regarding the issue. Read further below what they have answered me. Or have not. As they haven’t answered. They were probably busy spending dirty Bitcoins.
Moreover, I have checked election programmes of each political party and have tried to find out how they will deal with the issue in the next term of office.
Questions for political parties
I asked two questions (which are below) these political parties: TOP09, STAN, SOCDEM, Pirate party, ODS, KDU-ČSL and ANO.
In order to prevent being recognized as a biased editor, I decided to order the parties from Z to A. I left out “Czech” in the name of the pirate party so it is in the healthy centre of the list.
- How have you dealt with the issue (the housing crisis) and what have you done in the current term office for it?
- How will you deal with the issue in the upcoming term of office after the elections?
Just 3 parties have answered
Three parties have answered. They are: Pirate Party, SOCDEM and SPD. The rest didn’t answer until the publication of the article. I gave them 7 days to answer. However, even after 7 days having expired, nobody answered. Perhaps, as I wrote in the first paragraph, they were kept busy by spending dirty Bitcoins.
Pirate party response
“Hello,
We, the Pirates, have done three fundamental things to promote affordable housing. Under the leadership of Ivan Bartoš, the Ministry of Regional Development has prepared a housing support bill that will provide guarantees for landlords and fair conditions for tenants.
We have prepared a new building law to speed up construction, which passed the Chamber of Deputies unanimously, and this year we launched the digitization of building permits, which makes it easier for people to submit applications via the Builder’s Portal and also sets shorter deadlines for issuance. Thanks to the centralization of data, the state will also gain an overview of where and how applications are being processed. Unfortunately, we were unable to complete this mission.
We negotiated 10 billion for affordable housing from the National Recovery Plan for the first time in history for affordable, rather than social, housing.
We have prepared a rental housing program for municipalities, which can cover up to a quarter of the total costs, with a loan of up to 90% and an interest rate of around 3% at present. Compared to previous programs of the State Investment Support Fund, we have significantly reduced the interest rate to make it really attractive for municipalities and increase interest in construction and renovation. The repayment period is 30 years.
We worked on cooperative construction in the government; we need to legislatively regulate non-speculative housing cooperatives, which could then be recipients of public support and money. However, we did not get a chance to complete this either.
As a political party, we are not supposed to build apartments, but to create conditions for faster apartment construction and increase housing availability. In the Czech Republic, 40,000 apartments were built in 2022 alone, and construction began on 44,992 apartments, which was about 10,000 more than a year earlier. According to the Czech Statistical Office, the last time more construction projects were started was in 1990, when their number exceeded 60,000 apartments. In 2023, 38,067 new apartments were completed in the Czech Republic, half of them in family houses and almost 38 % in apartment buildings. Most of the construction took place in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region. “
The Pirate Party’s media team sent the answer.
SOCDEM response
“Good afternoon, I am sending you answers to your questions:
1) How have you dealt with the issue (the housing crisis) and what have you done in the current term office for it?
In 2021, the Social Democrats (SOCDEM) drafted an affordable housing bill, which was submitted by then-MP Jan Birke, but unfortunately, it failed to win the support of the Chamber of Deputies. The bill would have largely addressed the problems that have arisen during this term, in which the Social Democrats are unfortunately not represented in the Chamber of Deputies, and the current political representatives have completely given up on solving the issue.
2) How will you deal with the issue in the upcoming term of office after the elections?
Social democracy is the only political party with a well-developed program for solving the housing crisis. The only solution that has been tried and tested around the world is the Vienna model. This means massive long-term investment in public housing, through the purchase and construction of state, municipal, or cooperative apartments with regulated rents, so that the public sector is a strong player in the housing market. In the next term of office, we want to invest CZK 80 billion, 1% of GDP to build these apartments so that there will be up to 100,000 of them in four years. This would reduce rents and reduce the number of families dependent on housing benefits, which number more than 300,000 and cost the state budget over CZK 20 billion a year.
Have a nice day.”
Adriana Hanusova gave me the reply above.
SPD response
“1) How have you dealt with the issue (the housing crisis) and what have you done in the current term office for it?
Although we are in opposition, we have been very active in this area. I personally submitted about a dozen amendments that would make it easier for citizens to access social housing benefits by changing the so-called norms, which are completely unfair, especially to people living in smaller towns and rural areas. There, I proposed a fundamental change in the norms for all types of housing.
2) How will you deal with the issue in the upcoming term of office after the elections?
In the future, a systemic and rapid solution involving several steps is necessary. With regard to rental housing, this mainly concerns a solution on the supply side—i.e., the state must have tens of thousands of apartments built or purchased each year, which it will rent out at reasonably low rents. This will also put pressure on private property owners to reduce rents. Furthermore, the state must transfer hundreds of buildings and plots of land that it does not use to regions, cities, and municipalities free of charge, on the condition that they use them to build housing capacity for Czech citizens at regulated rents.”
Bc. Lucie Safrankova replied.
Evaluation of responses
I am evaluating the responses based on the criterions from How to solve housing crisis. I mean criterions which can really influence and put pressure on how high rents are and how expensive properties are.
Pirates have sped up the process of issuance of building permits and digitalization of the building permits process. At least that’s what they say in the e-mail.
This point really improves the housing crisis. If there is an easier and quicker building permit process, it will help to build more flats and houses in a shorter time period. The offer of flats will rise, which cause lowering rents.
SOCDEM have prepared a law relating to easily accessible housing which didn’t pass the chamber of deputies. Unfortunately, she didn’t elaborate what they mean by “easily accessible housing”. On the other hand, she wrote what they would be doing in the future and that is to regulate / cap rent prices.
This point of their actions can improve the situation in the future. It will limit a desire of entrepreneurs to buy up flats in the name of profit. If rent prices are capped and lower than expenses of entrepreneurs running the flats, they won’t be motivated with profit internally and won’t act that way. This approach is testified as effective in the United Kingdom in the previous article.
SPD has “been very active” as they wrote in the email. She (Miss Safrankova) submitted many amendments to simplify an access to social housing benefits.
In fact, this point of actions (hers or the party’s) worsens the situation. Property entrepreneurs and speculators know about the benefit and that is the reason why they raise their rents each time when the benefit is raised. We can be glad that her amendments haven’t passed through the chamber of deputies.
In the next part of the response, she speculated about what should be done. We can just guess if it is an opinion of Miss Safrankova or the whole SPD.
What election programmes say about the housing crisis
KDU-ČSL, ODS and TOP09 are in a coalition named SPOLU (translated as TOGETHER). They have a point about solving the housing crisis in their election programme. It says: “We will correct the badly done digitalization of the building permit process.” Perhaps they should have mentioned first how they created the problem (by removing Ivan Bartos from the position leading the digitalization) themselves instead of just promising what they would do in the future. Apart from that, their election programme doesn’t mention any other point from the previous article.
STAN has quite a lot written about housing crisis and affordable housing. There is a point in their election programme: “We will regulate short-term accommodation via platforms such as Airbnb by amending Act No. 159/1999 Coll. – we will introduce a mandatory register of property owners and guests, set a maximum number of days for short-term rentals, and ensure that they are taxed, with the revenues going towards supporting municipal housing. We will connect the land registry with the financial administration so that it is clear which apartments are not used by their owners for permanent residence. Where no one has permanent residence and no rental tax is paid, the owner will have to prove the reason for the vacancy – at least by means of an annual sworn statement.”
This point which relates to short-term rentals as Airbnb where many flats (7000 to 8000 in Prague) are rented in a hotel-style way for a couple of days. This causes shortage of flats for long-term rentals. Why do speculators do this? Because they earn more money this was. By prohibiting, regulating or terminating Airbnb, 7000 to 8000 flats will be made available in the market. It will raise offer and lower prices.
SPD doesn’t have this issue mentioned whatsoever. They don’t address this issue.
SOCDEM has the most elaborate election programme (for the elections and long-term) regarding the housing crisis. They refer to Vienna model, which corresponds with capped rents. It is the same as in the book Against Landlords (previous article). The model is based on capped rents in conjunction with a city/state owning a large number of flats. The flats are rented for fair prices (meaning that only 1/3rd of a monthly net salary goes to a rent). Vienna owns 220 000 flats. 18 % of Vienna population lives in them. Just owning the flats is effective enough because it forces flat speculators and investors to lower rents. If market rents of investors and speculators were higher than the city rents, nobody would rent the flats of speculators / investors because prospective tenants can choose to rent cheaper city flats.
Pirate party has a 2nd pillar of the election programme named: “We will give a kick to more affordable living” in their programme. It states that they will procure 200 000 new flats and make housing more affordable. There is also this point: “We will change rules for rental contracts and strengthen assurances for landlords so that they will utilize long-term contracts more. We will elaborate assurances in housing for private owners and we will open/add unused and empty flats to the market. When tenants pay well and on time, they should have better assurances as well. We will release money from the state budget for renovation and building dorms and strengthen social scholarships in the needed amount.”
They don’t mention any point from the Against Landlords book.
ANO doesn’t have any election programme. They said it would be release in September. They say the reason is they are afraid of other parties copying their programme (like at a school). That’s what I was told by ChatGPT after thoroughly and unsuccessfully searching for the programme on the Internet.
Sources:
Election programme SPOLU, SPD, SOCDEM, Pirate party.
Rents in council flats are auctioned in public auctions
Based on the Vienna model, where 220 000 flats are rent for capped rents, it is evident, that such a number of flats has influence on rent prices of flats owned by investors and speculators. A tenant can just choose the cheaper option.
On the other hand, what happens if state-owned flats are auctioned in public auctions instead of being rented for capped rents? Prices of flats which are supposed to regulate market prices with their lower price will rise to market prices.
And who is the most eager to keep it this way? So that state-owned flats rental prices are the same as the market prices of speculators, investors and real estate agents? Speculators, investors and real estate agents.
Then it doesn’t really make sense to me how auctioning state-owned flats in public auctions can be in the public interest/good.
Based on information on the website Městské části Praha 2 (Prague 2 – city district) and the website Hlídač státu, I have found out that Nexus a. s. – a private company organizes public electronic auctions in accordance with contracts signed between them and various city districts of Prague. There is a contract from 2022. There is written that 80 flats / properties were auctioned for the Prague 2 – city district. The private company charged 5000 CZK for organizing an auction, 12 900 CZK for a person winning the auction and 800 CZK for each individual viewing.
In total, for successfully auctioning 1 flat, they charged 17 900 CZK. It is 1 432 000 CZ for all 80 flats. Then I guess, I could write an email the council of Prague 2 – city district with a suggestion of creating a job for me for doing this job of auctioning and viewings of flats. What do you think? Are you looking for a job? Write them an email!
Change in social housing allowance
There are changes in the social housing allowance from 1st October 2025. However, I have written an email to the relevant bureau, and they told me, they still don’t know what king of change. They suggested me waiting.
Conclusion
We have had a look on statements of political parties regarding the housing crisis. Unfortunately, only 3 out of 8 have responded. I find it shocking from people who are supposed to represent the public.
The Pirate party has tried to improve the situation in the current term of office.
When it comes to election programmes, the most elaborate one is of SOCDEM party with tangible results from Vienna and United Kingdom.
How do you deal with the problem of housing? What’s the percentage of your salary which you pay for a rent?
Write in the comment section below.
