Project pricing: price list, sales releases and storey price coefficients

The pricing of a development project does not happen in a presentation or in someone’s head, but on a single sheet that has a version number, a validity date and a signature — the price list (ceník) is a governing document, not a list of prices. Every amount on it comes from three numbers: the base price (výchozí cena) per metre by layout (dispozice), the storey coefficient (koeficient podlaží) and the orientation coefficient (koeficient orientace). This text shows how we put such a sheet together, how it changes over time and where it most often falls apart.

A new-build price list is a tool, not a notice board

Three parties work with the same sheet at once: the sales side, which takes reservations according to it; the investor, who approves discounts according to it; and whoever prepares the reservation agreements (rezervační smlouva). That is why our price list has a title block (popisové pole) — project name, sheet number, version, validity date, the number of the sales release (prodejní vlna), base prices by layout, the designation of the reference unit and a record of who approved the version.

The reservation agreement then refers to a specific version of the price list, not to “the current price list”. The difference between these two wordings shows on a single day: the day the price list changes and someone signs a reservation at a price from the previous version.

The title block also holds the boundary of the sheet. The price list contains unit prices and nothing else; parking spaces, the cellar (sklep), front garden (předzahrádka), terrace (terasa) and client changes (klientská změna) have their own rate card (sazebník). Otherwise the price per m² (cena za metr čtvereční) of a new build (novostavba) becomes incomparable with anything in the area — and buyers will compare. The sequence of phases the price list belongs to is described in selling a development project.

Base price per metre: three inputs and one floor

The base price is the number to which the coefficients are then applied as multipliers. It arises from three inputs and one constraint.

Actual sales in the cadastral area (katastrální území). Not adverts (inzerát), but the prices at which flats in the area actually changed hands. In the first quarter of 2026, 1,800 new flats were sold in Prague at an average achieved price (realizovaná cena) of CZK 177,647/m², while the median flat price across twelve Prague neighbourhoods (čtvrť) was CZK 159,131/m². The base differs for each figure — an average across new builds versus a median of neighbourhoods across the whole market — but the gap of roughly 11.6 % is a usable first estimate of what a new build in the neighbourhood can bear compared with older housing stock.

Competitors’ remaining stock. In the same quarter, 5,450 new units were on offer in Prague. What interests us is not how many there are, but which ones: the layout, storey (podlaží) and orientation of the flats that are still left in neighbouring projects after two years. What is left is a map of the mistakes in someone else’s price list.

The project budget. It sets the floor below which one cannot go — not the price. The price is made on the market; the budget says when the project stops making sense.

The first two inputs yield a base price for each layout separately. In a model mid-market project, slightly below the average achieved price of new flats, we work with a spread of 1+kk (one room plus a kitchenette) CZK 190,000/m², 2+kk CZK 180,000/m², 3+kk CZK 172,000/m² and 4+kk and larger CZK 165,000/m². The spread is not a surcharge for a small flat: the same bathroom and the same entrance core are divided over a smaller area, and at the same time there are more buyers for it.

One last figure on this. The average asking price (nabídková cena) of a new flat in Prague in the first quarter of 2026 was CZK 182,311/m², the average achieved price CZK 177,647/m². The difference of CZK 4,664/m², i.e. 2.6 %, has to arise somewhere — either as a managed discount according to rules, or as haggling at the table. The price list decides which of the two it will be.

Storey coefficient: what exactly it pays for

The storey coefficient is the number by which the base price per metre is multiplied according to the storey. It relates to a reference storey, where it equals 1.00 — for a six-storey building we choose the 3rd above-ground storey (nadzemní podlaží, NP).

We keep the gradient gentle: in the model six-storey building, the whole spread between the 1st storey and the setback storey (ustupující podlaží) fits within 15 percentage points. For us, a wider spread means that something other than the storey has been smuggled into the coefficient: the view, a terrace or the quiet side of the building. Each of these has its own place on the sheet.

Three storeys behave differently. The ground floor with a front garden has a lower coefficient because it can be seen from the street — but the front garden is priced at a separate rate per metre of outdoor area, not by raising the coefficient. If the two are mixed, the buyer pays for the garden twice and the sheet does not show it. Units above the garage entrance receive a correction relative to the other flats on the same storey; we write it in a note on the specific unit, because it concerns not the storey but two flats on it. The setback storey carries the highest coefficient and the greatest risk: the pool of buyers is the smallest, and in the model we assume it will sell last. We therefore check its price differently — when the price of the whole unit including the terrace exceeds the level at which a smaller family house can be bought in the same neighbourhood, the coefficient is wrong, even if it looks reasonable in the table.

The orientation coefficient is read from the site plan, not from a table

The orientation coefficient has two components: the cardinal direction and the exposure. Exposure is what the unit looks onto — a quiet courtyard (vnitroblok), an ordinary street, a busy road with trams, or an open view. The two numbers are multiplied, and only the product goes onto the sheet.

The basis is the site plan (situace), i.e. a plan of the surroundings showing the position of the building. We mark two things on it: what can be seen from which unit and what can be heard from where. A north-facing flat onto a quiet courtyard and a north-facing flat onto the main avenue have the same cardinal direction and a very different price; a table of orientations will not show that.

Here is the weak spot of our approach, which we can name but not remove: a view is not a property of the flat, it is a property of its surroundings. We price it only where it cannot be built over — above land that cannot be developed, across water, across a protected park. Where the neighbouring plot can be built on, we do not put the view into the coefficient at all, even if it happens to open up from the window right now. That costs us money on units where the view would have lasted. It is a conscious price for not having to discuss with anyone, two years after they move in, what they actually paid for.

Sales releases: why the price list is not published in full

A sales release is a part of the offer released for sale at once, under one version of the price list. It is not a limited-supply trick, but a way of not making one mistake fifty-four times.

In a model project with 54 units and 4,204 m² of saleable area (započitatelná plocha), we divide the sale into four releases: roughly 25 % of the area in the first, 30 % in the second, 25 % in the third and the rest in the final sell-off (doprodej). In the model, the first release goes 3 % below the base price list, the second returns to it, and both the third release and the final sell-off go above it.

What the escalation earns: at base prices the volume of the model project is CZK 727,220,000, and the split of 25/30/25/20 with adjustments of −3 %, 0, +2 % and +3 % gives a weighted factor of 1.0035, i.e. roughly CZK 2,550,000 extra. Over a two-year sale, that is not an argument.

The argument lies elsewhere. If the price list were flat and set 5 % below the market, the whole building would sell that way and the loss would be roughly CZK 36,400,000. With releases, the same mistake shows only on the first quarter of the area, i.e. on roughly CZK 9,100,000, and the rest is corrected in version 2. The difference of CZK 27,300,000 does not come from escalation but from information: the first release is a measurement, not a clearance sale. Two things are measured — how quickly the units whose price we are sure of are reserved, and the ratio of viewings to reservations for all the others. When the first release opens and what must be ready for it is discussed in when to launch sales.

Releases have a drawback we cannot get around: they work only as long as they are adhered to. A single discount granted out of sequence — by phone, because the buyer is pushing and there is a week left until the end of the month — destroys the credibility of the escalation for everyone else. And the discount is decided by the investor, not by us; we can require that each one has a written reason and an entry in the log, but we cannot rule it out.

The second drawback is the market. Year-on-year growth in achieved prices of older Prague flats was 11.5 % in the first quarter of 2026, and the escalation between releases largely just tracks this movement. As soon as the market stalls, the planned spread is a promise that cannot be kept, and it has to be halted publicly and all at once, not quietly flat by flat.

How the price list changes and who may change it

A change to the price list is a new version of the whole sheet, not an overwritten line. We archive the old version: reserved units keep the price of the version on which the reservation was signed, even if two new ones have been issued in the meantime.

We round prices to whole tens of thousands. We do not use prices like CZK 9,990,000 — on a flat for nine million, ten thousand saves nobody anything, and buyers read it as a technique from another industry.

We do not record a discount by overwriting the price on the sheet, but as a separate line in the log: unit, original price, discount, reason, date, who approved it. The sheet thus remains a reference against which, once the project is over, one can calculate how much discount was given away and on which units. That tends to make uncomfortable reading, and that is precisely why it is done.

Where development project pricing most often breaks down

A flat price list. One price per m² for the whole building. It looks fair and means that the north-facing flat above the garage entrance subsidises the south-west-facing flat with a view. The ones with a view sell; the ones above the entrance are left.

Chaining coefficients. A coefficient for the storey, the orientation, the view, the terrace and one more for the quiet side. Each defensible on its own, nonsense as a product. In the model price list we keep a control rule: a product of all coefficients for a single unit outside the band 0.87–1.18 means going back to the design, not to the table.

A discount instead of correcting the price list. When the same unit fails to sell three times in a row, the problem is not the buyers. The correction belongs in a new version of the sheet, not in a verbal agreement with the fourth interested party.

The final sell-off. We do not consider the last units in a project to be random. They tend to be the ones that had the wrong coefficient from the first version, and this only becomes apparent in the last months of the sale.

Annex: analysis of a sample price list sheet

An excerpt from a sheet of the model project in the middle price tier — 54 units, 4,204 m² of saleable area, six above-ground storeys. The figures are model figures, not from a specific engagement. The annotations below the sheet refer to fields and columns by the numbers in brackets.

Block 1 — title block of the sheet

Block 2 — excerpt from the unit table (tabulka jednotek)

Block 3 — rate card for outdoor areas and ancillary spaces (příslušenství) (14)

Annotations to the sheet

(1) The project name and nothing more. Marketing subtitles do not belong on a price list — the sheet is read, not presented.

(2) The version and validity date are the only things that distinguish the valid price list from the one someone downloaded to their phone in the spring. The reservation agreement refers to this pair.

(3) The release number keeps the sales side to the rule. When the sheet says “release 2 of 4”, it is clear that the prices from release 1 no longer apply and that release 3 exists.

(4) Base prices by layout, not one price for the building. This is the only place on the sheet where the size of the unit is taken into account; the coefficients no longer deal with it.

(5) The reference unit is a checkpoint. It has both coefficients at 1.00, and its price per m² must equal the base price for its layout. If it does not, the error is in the formula, not in the estimate.

(6) The investor approves. The sales side proposes and manages the price list, but does not sign off a version on its own.

(7) An explicitly listed “not included” protects both the buyer and the seller. A missing line can easily become a source of dispute at signing.

(8) Floor area (podlahová plocha), not usable area (užitná plocha) and not an area including the balcony (balkon). Outdoor areas have their rate in block 3 and are not added into this column.

(9) Two pieces of information in one field: the cardinal direction and the exposure. The orientation coefficient further along the row is their product. In B.104, a north-west aspect met a busy street, and the result of 0.93 is the lowest on the sheet. Compared with the same layout on the reference storey and in the reference exposure, this is CZK 21,638 on every metre, i.e. CZK 1,692,000 on a single unit of 78.2 m² — that is how much the two coefficients weigh together.

(10) The storey coefficient relative to the 3rd storey: ground floor 0.94, setback storey 1.09. The whole range on the sheet is 15 percentage points.

(11) The orientation coefficient is read from the site plan. A quiet courtyard adds, a busy street subtracts, a view is priced only where it cannot be built over.

(12) Price per m² = base price for the layout × storey coefficient × orientation coefficient, rounded to whole crowns. We keep the column even in the price list for buyers — they calculate it the same way anyway.

(13) Unit price rounded to whole tens of thousands. B.602: 165,000 × 1.09 × 1.05 = CZK 188,843/m², × 118.6 m² = CZK 22,396,780, on the sheet CZK 22,400,000. Added to this are a terrace of 46.0 m², which is above 40 m² and is priced individually (at the 25 % rate alone it would come to CZK 2,170,000), and a parking space from the rate card.

(14) The rate card is part of the same sheet. As soon as it becomes separate, it starts to drift apart from the price list.

Frequently asked questions

How is the price of a flat in a new build calculated? In our approach, the base price per m² for the given layout is multiplied by the storey coefficient and the orientation coefficient, and the result by the floor area. Outdoor areas, parking and the cellar are added separately according to the rate card.

What is a storey coefficient? A number that adjusts the price per metre according to the storey, relative to a reference storey with a value of 1.00. In our model six-storey building, the range is 0.94–1.09.

Why is the same flat one storey higher more expensive? It is harder to see into from the surroundings, it is quieter and it has a different view. In the model price list, the difference between adjacent storeys is a matter of single-digit percentages; for us, a big jump means that someone has added a terrace or a view into the coefficient.

When does a developer raise the price list? In our approach, at the turn of sales releases, not continuously. A release opens once the target of the previous release has been met; reserved units keep the price of the version on which they were reserved.

Can you negotiate the price of a new build? On units from the current release, our approach does not allow for it — a discount out of sequence breaks the price list for all the other buyers. Room is more likely to be found in the final sell-off and in the units that stay on offer the longest.

Key takeaways

The price list is a governing sheet with a version, a date and a reference unit, not an overview of prices on the website. The price of each unit is made up of three numbers — the base price for the layout, the storey coefficient and the orientation coefficient — and everything else has its own line in the rate card. Sales releases, moreover, do not earn money through escalation: in the model project it brought in roughly CZK 2,550,000, whereas the timely correction of a badly set price brought in roughly CZK 27,300,000. They have one main drawback, but a significant one — they work only as long as they are adhered to, and a single discount granted out of sequence breaks them.