One of the biggest Czech developers, Sekyra Group, is offering a number of its residential projects, as well as some office buildings for sale.
The company’s PR agent Radek Polák told E15 that the firm has already found buyers for plots of land for the residential projects Kateřinky in Újezd u Průhonic, Radimova in Prague 6, and Křižovnický dvůr in Prague’s Hloubětín, and is searching for a bidder for the residential building Reiknechtka. “For a big real estate group, they were not so efficient from the business point of view. Sekyra Group wants to focus on the biggest urban projects in future,” said Polák. According to E15 information, however, the company is also trying to sell a block of vacant flats in the luxury project Rezidence Korunní and the office buildings Nestlé and East Building in Prague 4.
“I cannot confirm that,” Polák said. The developer, possessing rights to build up a number of localities in Prague, has been looking for an investor since last year. The city hall warned in the spring that for example the implementation study for Rohanský island development does not make it clear at all how the company would finance the project.
Developers getting rid of whole projects
While construction of flats has dropped significantly, the number of whole projects offered for sale is increasing. Developers, who overestimated their forces and future demand in the boom times, are now getting rid of unfinished residential buildings as well as prepared plots of land. And it does not concern just less attractive localities. The markedly reduced access to loans and merciless payment schedules in banks are forcing some developers to sell even properties that might be profitable again in future.
Real estate brokers are offering for instance, the projects Vyšehradská 26 in Prague 2, from West One Real Estate, and Tusarova in Prague 7, a project planned by Coninvest. In the increasingly popular part of the Holešovice neighbourhood, near the Vltava river, Coninvest wanted to build maisonette apartments after the standing building is torn down. Sekyra Group is offering a portfolio of smaller residential projects of its subsidiary České nemovitosti. Since last autumn already, there has been a search for a company to build 300 flats in Miškovice, in northwestern Prague. The developer is Vinořská spol., a firm controlled by Sekyra Group along with the Cypriot company Berthier & Cie Limited. Last year, Vinořská spol. offered the Miškovice project at CZK 100 million, while now it says on its website that CZK 60 million is a price subject to negotiation. Sekyra Group PR representative Radek Polák did not want to comment on the sale of the project. He only confirmed that one of the biggest Czech developers is offering investors smaller residential projects comprising roughly 50 flats.
“The prices of the projects are in the order of dozens of millions of crowns,” said Polák. “It is not any massive sell-off of Sekyra Group, it only involves some five per cent of the whole portfolio,” he added. Another project that Sekyra Group would like to get rid of is Rezidence Korunní, according to E15 information. Unlike the other properties offered for sale, this is a luxury project that is partly sold out already. “Sixty per cent of flats have been booked or sold,” said Polák. He refused to comment on the information on a possible sale of the remaining flats to a single investor. “If there is an investor who buys them all, he would get a considerable discount,” a source involved in the real estate market said.
