Modular Homes in Czechia Draw Buyers with Price and Speed of Construction

More and more Czech families and investors are buying modular houses — prefabricated structures assembled on-site in a matter of weeks instead of the usual year of construction. According to data from the real estate group EHS, the average price of a traditional family house in the country topped 68,000 crowns per square meter in the second quarter, while a comparable modular house costs 3–4.5 million crowns.

How a module becomes a house

Modular houses work like a building kit: buyers can start with a basic version — a living room and utility spaces — and simply add a nursery once a child is born. If the house is rented out, the owner can add extra modules as demand grows.

"The main advantage is speed: an investor can bring a property into operation much faster than with some conventional construction methods," said Denisa Struharova, spokesperson for Modulos.

Weeks instead of a year

Building a standard house in Czechia takes more than a year, a cottage takes several months, and a modular house is measured in weeks. The secret lies in production: the modules are made in an enclosed factory hall where weather has no effect on the process, and installation on-site takes just a few hours.

"Some processes can run in parallel, which significantly shortens the timeline. The faster the project is completed, the faster the investment pays off," noted Marie Schüller, marketing director of Koma Modular.

Such houses are most often rented out as apartments or turned into small tourist complexes. Koma Modular itself built a hotel with more than a hundred rooms in Prague's Letňany district last year.

Cheaper by the square meter

Amid rising housing prices, modular houses are also becoming an option for people looking for a home of their own. "We also see solutions for parents, or conversely for children, within a single family plot," Struharova added.

For owners of their own land, a modular house is the cheaper option. As noted, the average price of a family house in Czechia exceeds 68,000 crowns per square meter — meaning a hundred-square-meter house would cost 6.8 million crowns. Companies, meanwhile, offer ready-made modular houses in the range of 3 to 4.5 million crowns.

For investors, and the pitfalls

The price is attractive for investors too. Small recreational apartments in Czechia's popular tourist spots now sell for amounts comparable to Prague apartment prices — around five million crowns. A modular house of 40–50 square meters can be bought for roughly two million crowns, which speeds up the return on investment.

The downside is that the price of the house doesn't include the land plot, and sometimes not even part of the associated costs, such as delivering the house to the site.

A modular house can be bought with a standard mortgage. "If a modular house is permanently attached to the land plot and is or will be registered in the real estate cadastre as a property, it can be financed with a mortgage just like any other real estate," explained Pavel Zúbek, spokesperson for Komerční banka.

There's also an organizational catch: a modular house project needs to be planned out in detail in advance. While changes can still be made during construction of a regular house, doing so is much harder once the modules are already in factory production.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz