Article Summary: Apartments cheaper by euro – Properties are stagnating according to NBS, Banska Bystrica surprises; 6 May/2010, author: Peter Kremský

Housing prices in Slovakia have hardly changed during the first quarter of this year. The significant price drop has presumably stopped and the beginning of this year was a rebound from the bottom. These are results from statistics on housing prices from the National Bank of Slovakia, which are prepared from documents from the National Association of Real Estate Offices of Slovakia and from the Real estate price map.

Average square meter of housing in Slovakia got cheaper by one euro to each 1296 euro from December to March according to the NBS. On an annual basis it is about 8.3 percent less. Since the peak in the summer of 2008 housing got cheaper by more than 16 percent. There has already appeared quarterly growth in half of the regions.

While in Bratislava and Košice the growth was only symbolic, in Prešov region it reached 2 percent and in Banská Bystrica region even 5 percent. It is particularly surprising because these regions are among the most suffering from unemployment.

Banská Bystrica region is the least affected region with the decline in house prices across the country, the prices got cheaper of just 8.55 percent since the top of the prices and are now at the level of Žilina region, clearly more expensive than living in Nitra and Trenčín regions.

These regions are clearly still getting cheaper, on an annual basis they get lower by around 15 percent. Compared to the first quarter least price fall was in major cities and its regions: Bratislava, Kosice and Banska Bystrica - around five percent.

Stagnation in property prices is expected around zero this year, while individual regions can wait for different development. Large cities with a faster trade boom may experience moderate growth, while cities with the decline in industrial investment and a surplus of new dwellings will likely fall further