Martin Bernátek, who sold Ovečkárna, buys a Tenerife flat on the cheap

Czech entrepreneur Martin Bernátek, known for selling the e-shop Ovečkárna for hundreds of millions of crowns, has found a third “anchor point” for life together with his wife Lucie — a flat in Tenerife. The decision came after a long search for a way to diversify their accumulated capital while also getting a property the family could actually use.

The 35-year-old businessman and his wife built another online shop together, OlaOla, focused on longevity, which they later expanded with a café and cabin rentals in the Javorníky hills. “Wallachia is in my heart, Zlín is the base where I work, and Tenerife is now the third anchor,” says Bernátek.

Besides their main business and several startups, the couple have invested in funds and shares, but they were also looking at real estate. This wasn't so much about making money as about a strategic purchase for their own use. Prague was considered first, but the idea was dropped on a simple principle: if things get bad in Zlín, they'll get bad in the capital too.

The couple drew inspiration partly from tech entrepreneur Filip Molčan, known for buying property abroad and writing about it in his newsletter 11 Houses — he recently bought a house in Greece for the price of a Prague garage.

Among their options, the Bernáteks deliberately ruled out Dubai, because of its showy lifestyle and its strategically vulnerable location just 150 km from Iran. They also considered Sardinia, Majorca and a secluded chalet in the Italian Alps at an altitude of two thousand metres, but there the family ran into the problem of total isolation with no direct access to water — in a property so cut off from infrastructure, they reckoned they'd last a month at most. Italy also carries earthquake risks and heavy bureaucracy that can stretch out a deal for years.

The final choice fell on the Canary Islands, specifically Tenerife — thanks to its stable year-round weather, direct flights, developed infrastructure and a fairly strong Czech community. The family bought a 60-square-metre flat with a huge 40-metre terrace, twenty minutes from the airport and eight hundred metres from the beach, next to a water park with dolphins.

According to Bernátek, a similar flat in good condition currently costs around €350,000 (8.5 million crowns), but he managed to talk the price down to almost €300,000 (7.2 million crowns) — roughly 120,000 crowns per square metre, or just 72,000 crowns per metre once the terrace is factored in. By comparison, the average sale price in Prague is currently around 150,000 crowns per metre, according to the Price Map data from the Sreality portal.

Bernátek stresses that the purchase wasn't meant as a rental investment: “Honestly, I don't like sharing my things with someone else,” laughs the owner of several cabins that he nonetheless rents out to tourists.