Equilibrium Development of Housing Prices in the Czech Republic

This article, based on an empirical analysis, discusses factors affecting property prices and tries to identify periods of property price overvaluation in the Czech Republic. To achieve this, the article uses both relatively simple approach using ratios related to the house prices (e.g. price-to-rent or price-to-income indicators) as well as international comparison and more advanced econometrical approach. Within this econometrical approach we apply both time series analysis for the Czech Republic as a whole and panel regression for the Czech regions. This analysis identifies overvalued property prices in 2002-2003 and 2007-2008. In 2007-2008, however, the rise in property prices was largely explainable by fundamentals, meaning that the price overvaluation in this period was considerably smaller than that in the first one. From the regional perspective, there is a higher degree of overvaluation in regions with higher property prices. The exception is Prague, which seems to be a "specific" region - partly due to the properties of the estimation technique.