As some of you know, when we came back to Slovakia we had the intention to move back to Bratislava (the capital), not Nitra (where our home is). Obviously, if you have been following our adventures we didn't make it to Bratislava yet. Even though I'm there 4 days a week, it's not the same thing as living in the 'big city.' Some of you have asked - "why haven't you moved yet?" And most of the askers expect a 'spiritual' reason - it goes with the territory of being missionaries. People expect that everything you do is 'spiritual'. Although I'm sure there is a spiritual component to our living situation (certainly God has His hands in most things), there are really clear logistic/economic reasons we didn't move- yet. In a word, Bratislava is a very "expensive" place to live in.
It's pretty difficult for me to describe housing market here in Slovakia other then it's very competitive. It's the exact opposite of what many of you in America are experiencing right now. To get a better idea of what I'm talking about check out this report:
"Will the balloon burst in Slovakia?
In Western Europe apartment prices are considered unreasonably high when the price of an average (60 m2 1-bedroom) apartment climbs higher than the 5-year income of an average household.
If this is true, then the prices in three counties of Slovakia, namely Bratislava, Trnava, and Kosice, are excessive, in certain cases clearly speculative. Zilina, so popular because of the KIA Motors factory, is fast approaching this level.
In the city of Bratislava the price of an average apartment reaches 8 years worth of household income.
However, Slovak real estate professionals agree that the steep price rises will continue for a number of years. There are two main reasons for this.
First of all the indebtedness of the population is very low. There is an ample reserve for apartment purchases through bank financing. In 2007 the residential mortgage debt was a massive 55% of the GDP in the eurozone (EU15) countries. In Slovakia this indicator is merely 16%. (This is one of the main reasons the “credit crunch” is not directly threatening the Eastern European economies.)
The second reason is that the ratio of apartments to 1000 inhabitants is only 318 in Slovakia, while it is 420 in the old EU countries. “Taking this into consideration, there is a shortage of 550,000 apartments in the country,” claims Juraj Necpal, one of the directors of the real estate development firm IPEC. Milan Kanuscak, the project manager of the developer Cresco says there is a shortage of 80,000 units just in Bratislava. This is why it is no wonder that today in the capital city with an official population of 440,000, the price of the newly-built apartments is 50% more than the costs of construction.
It is impossible to find a studio apartment in Bratislava under 2 million Slovak crowns (62,400 EUR), except in a few outer, socially challenged neighborhoods. The price of small apartments has skyrocketed. People gasp when browsing average prices in the capital. The square meter price of newly-built apartments begins at 50,000 SKK (1560 EUR). A new 30 m2 studio apartment in Petrzalka, which is the low end of the market, costs 2.3 million SKK (71,760 EUR). Calculating with a 20-year term, the monthly mortgage payments would amount to 16,000 SKK (500 EUR) in case the buyer takes a 100% mortgage, which is available. If there is a 20% down payment, then the monthly payments are reduced to 12,800 SKK (400 EUR). There are no older pre-fab apartments in panel blocks available under 2 million SKK, either.
This phenomenon of chronic shortage of apartments has spread to other nearby commuting towns as well, for example Samorin. As we go further east, the situation is all the same; just an example of what is driving the search for housing in Western Slovakia: Sony has just announced the hiring of 3500 people in Nitra (town of 85,000, 92 km east of Bratislava) as they are planning to manufacture 3 million TV sets by the end of this year."
