Agricultural land prices development in the Czech Republic and the latest legal development

Agricultural land is the rare resource of strategic importance and its market in the Czech Republic underwent significant development in the last decade. A continuous trend of price increase in the last decade resulted in prices that are higher 3.5 times now compared to the year 2006. However the trend was not the same over time and the year 2014 brought even higher price increase than ever before due to legal changes, non-agricultural investors and the end of the economic crisis. Tested hypothesis confirmed that there is statistically significant difference in price development before and after 2014. Legal changes concern the right of first refusal which allowed reaching more easily broader range of potential buyers. Long and medium-term non-agricultural investors were seeking the opportunity of high yield and low risk investments. However the situation may change since the share of non-agricultural investors on total purchase slowly decreases as the costs in the investments increases. Also the re-introduction of the right of first refusal will have a negative impact on the market. Similar negative effect will have CZK appreciation against EUR and USD because of higher costs for foreign investors from Germany, Austria, Netherlands and Belgium. The last significant factor is the increase of the key interest rate which may continue in the future and which increases the costs of credit used for the agricultural land purchase.