Authors: Ing. Jan Pavlík, PhD. (CZU), Ing. Tereza Burešová (CZU)
Rural areas can be attractive places to live, but how much do housing prices influence their attractiveness? Research emerging from GRANULAR project, led by the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU), is tackling this question by developing methods to assess how real estate prices relate to rural appeal, addressing a key gap: the lack of a consistent EU-wide proxy for housing prices.
How we collected and used the data
The CZU team collected extensive real estate transaction data from the Czech cadastral authorities, specifically the Czech Cadastre Registry. This registry is the mandatory source for all basic data evidence of all real estate, new buildings and ownership changes of existing holdings.
The research focuses on two regions to compare extremes: Karlovy Vary Region and Central Bohemia. Data was collected for the period from 2014 to 2024, representing approximately 20.000 for and 60.000 records for Central Bohemia. Each record contained information about the level of municipality, year and price level.
Comparing urban and rural costs
Municipalities were classified according to the European Commission using the DEGURBA (degree of urbanisation) classification. This classification indicates the character of an area with a combination of population size and the population density thresholds to establish three mutually exclusive classes: 3- rural areas, 2 – town and suburbs, and 1-cities.
The two selected regions were deliberately selected as opposing examples of real estate price levels whithin the country. The Karlovy VaryRegion has one of the lowest real estate prices, while Central Bohemia has one of the highest.
Analysis of the transaction records revealed a clear increase in real estate prices in both regions. However, a significant disparity can be seen in the price levels. While the Karlovy Vary Region reaches a maximum price level of under 2 million CZK, the price level in the Central Bohemian Region was almost double that figure in the same year.
The influence of population migration and real estate prices on the overall appeal of rural areas is the subject of broader, ongoing research within the project.
These data are currently being analysed in relation to population census data. The final results will subsequently be evaluated and published in a GRANULAR report on Rural Attractiveness and Perceptions, scheduled for release in the spring of 2026.
