A story about how it works when you want to rent a flat in Prague in January 2010. (Might be a lot more difficult if you are a foreigner)
Finding a flat in Prague
At www.sreality.cz you can find most of all offers. 95 percent or more of those are from real estate agencies – that means you will need to pay a commission for the rental - usually 1 month rent + 20% VAT (!). Also private persons can offer via this server but unfortunately they don’t use this option very often… Some offers by private persons can be found at www.sbazar.cz.
Other useful sites are www.bezrealitky.cz - nice project to avoid unnecessary services of real estate agencies but not used by too many.
Watch out! The real estate agencies put in their offerings absolutely everything that they find whereever. Therefore it is easily possible that one flat is offered by many agencies and also by the owner at the same time. Before seeing the flat it’s worth to search for the owner on the Internet.
There is a lot of other websites where you can find even more flats. Most of these extra flats are gone already but the reason why these are announced is in my opinion that the real estate agency just wants to get your requirements and phone number and if they have some flat that they cannot get rid of they will call you.
Is the flat still available?
Good flats at our location were gone in few hours. There was no sense of reading older announcements. Either there was something wrong with the flat (too high rental, next to busy road, first floor, etc.) or it was gone! Always! For this reason don’t expect to get any discounts for good flats. One must be ready to decide almost immediately.
We decided for one flat in 2 hours after the seeing of it and were already second in the list.
Once a girl brought a commission to the seeing and paid directly during the appointment so we were out of the game.
On the other hand one nice flat for ok price but next to a busy road stayed available for weeks.
Requirements by the owners
Often – “no foreigners” (!) (I suppose people from former Soviet Union are meant by this?).
Frequently also: no pets, not too many people in one flat, etc. Surprisingly very few owners were interested about who is going to rent their flat!
Viewing of the flats
In case of a good flat you won’t usually choose the time – the real estate agency will. And in this case real estate agent is lazy to go to the same place more then once. Things like canceled appointments just before the seeing are quite normal…
Once I wanted to arrange a visiting for 6pm. The lady asked me to come at 5.30pm because she has a client at 5pm so that she does not have to wait. When I was checking the visits I had arranged I noticed that the client at 5pm and the client at 5.30pm is the same - it was me :-) Reason: one flat offered by two different agency, apparently they cooperated.
Price and tricks
The total rent consists of:
- rent itself (the profit for the owner before taxes)
- services (garbage, cleaning of the common rooms, etc.)
- fee for the funds for renovations (usually 20-30 CZK per sqm) - be careful who pays this
- advance payment for energies (heating, water, hot water, electricity, gas) - should be put in balance in the end of year but must be mentioned in the rental agreement
In addition to this you need to take account of paying:
- a deposit which you get back in the end (about one month rent)
- a commission for the real estate agency (about one month rent)
Sometimes the announced price is 10k+fees of 5k, sometimes 13k + fees of 2k and sometimes you will even have to pay something extra (energy, etc.)! Always ask and also read the agreement carefully before you sign it.
Real estate agencies
Most of the agents I met were absolutely unprofessional. They were even sometimes seeing the flat and meeting the owner at the same time as me for the first time. They announced the viewing for more people for the same time. They were unable to answer basic questions such as which fees are included in the rental and which are to be paid separately… There are hundreds of real estate agencies in Prague most of them have very bad reputation.
It’s easy money for them – one visit, one contract (that they have for years) and they earn about 13.000 CZK.
Contract
Usually the contract is made for one year – almost never for unlimited period. Reason: due to the law it is complicated to get rid of the tenant with unlimited rental agreement even if he for example doesn't pay the rent. Same reason why you are not allow to have permanent residency in the flat… In inner parts of Prague this will cause you troubles with parking.
The agreement (“nájemní smlouva“) has 3 months of notice period by law. If you cancel the agreement before the agreed period, the deposit (usually 1 month rental) stays for the owner as mentioned in the contract. Be careful that you are not signing "podnájemní smlouva" (underlease) - then you are not protected by law.
Postscript
I suppose my 3 year career at sourcing at one of the top companies in Europe paid off: we rented a flat directly from the owner and got a discount of 1500 CZK per month. My heart would bleed if I had to give even 1 Euro to the real estate agents I met.
useful links:
Good luck! Hodně štěstí!
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