BUSINESS While Ostrava suffers from a lack of flats, the situation is opposite in Karviná and Havířov, towns with cheaper costs of housing and decreasing numbers of inhabitants. How do you explain that? Besides decreasing number of families with more children, there are also other trends easy to understand. Young people are eager to learn and earn experience in Prague and abroad. They leave and seldom come back. Yet there are many companies in our region that offer interesting job opportunities. We can support these incoming employees with starter flats with up to a 50% discount off the rent. The same applies to students who decide to stay in the region when they finish their studies and wish to live on their own. We collaborate with the councillors of the region and various town and city authorities to develop feasible strategies and solve the difficult situation together, e.g. through the Employees’ Mobility programme. Does RESIDOMO consider the construction of new blocks of flats? In the long–term prospective we do plan the construction of our own housing estates, nevertheless, it is not an issue of economic interest in the region at the present. It may change. The construction costs in Ostrava and in Prague are much the same, however,

the income from rent will significantly differ. Rents in Ostrava is of course lower, so building new flats in Ostrava is not cost–effective nowadays. Does the main goal focus on looking after clients and their housing? It sure does. We want our blocks and flats to provide a comfortable life. It means that we won’t cease our efforts to improve the qualities of our housing capacities, we will keep on developing and improving services offered to our clients. We generally strive to make the citizens of our region feel happy not only in their homes but also in the streets of the towns where they live. We are revitalizing selected localities and blocks, looking after heritage buildings and monuments in historical protected urban areas, renewing non-residential rooms and premises as we want them to be used with reason and sense, to be useful to citizens. We support small businesses and freelancers, cultural and sporting events in the Moravian– Silesian Region. We are a proud partner of Colours of Ostrava, we contributed to the Olympic Park Ostrava 2016 and Olympic Festival 2018, etc. We do care about the positive image of our region and we feel we are an important part of it.

Text & foto: RESIDOMO, s.r.o.

Jan Rafaj CEO RESIDOMO

POSITIV 1/2018

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