How to market a real estate development project

Prague is rich in capital, poor in permits

Numbers first, since they frame all of 2026. Commercial real estate investment in Czechia jumped to €4.2 billion in 2025, more than double 2024 and a market record, with 86% of the volume coming from domestic money. In the first half of 2025, Czechia even overtook Poland to become the region's leading investment destination in CEE. That's a solid PR story for anything targeting institutional capital.

The other side of the coin: new-flat supply is choked by red tape, not a lack of appetite to build. In the first nine months of 2025, the number of building permits issued fell to under 46,000, the lowest since 1999, after a failed rollout of digital building permitting. Full digitalisation has been pushed back to 2030. When a developer says flats are scarce, this time it isn't marketing hyperbole. Per a joint analysis by Central Group, Skanska Residential and Trigema, around 6,000 new flats sold in Prague over nine months, with a forecast of a record 7,500 to 8,000 for the full year, and selling prices (CZK 168,785/m², +10.9% year on year) rose faster than asking prices. The demand is real, not invented.

Three disciplines, three audiences

A residential project sells to a family buying once in a lifetime, deciding over months, often with a mortgage and a partner. An office or logistics building leases or sells to an investor deciding on yield, ESG certification and tenant covenant, not the layout of a flat. And a whole new district needs a third audience on top: the city, the neighbours and the media, because without their buy-in the building permit (see above) never arrives at all. Whoever serves these three audiences the same campaign wastes budget on two-thirds of them.

Placemaking: build the district's brand years before the first shovel

The most underrated discipline in the whole field. For its Rohan City project on Prague's Karlín peninsula, planned with urbanist Jan Gehl and architect Eva Jiřičná, Sekyra Group has run a free festival, Rohan Design District, for three years running: walks through the future site, talks with architects, open studios, years before anything goes on sale. People form a relationship with the place before the first price list ever appears.

Penta Real Estate made a smaller but sharp move with Masaryčka in Prague: designed by Zaha Hadid, but it kept the station's local nickname instead of inventing a new corporate brand for the district. It didn't rewrite Praguers' mental map, it borrowed it. Abroad, Battersea Power Station in London does the same thing at a different scale: a £9 billion redevelopment that drew a quarter million visitors on opening weekend, before most of the building was even leasable. Placemaking isn't product marketing, it's marketing trust in a place.

What the law requires, not just good taste

Czech real estate marketing carries two specific legal duties that generic "how to sell property" guides skip, and they're the fastest routes to a fine.

The first is the energy performance certificate (PENB). Since a 2015 amendment to Act No. 406/2000 Sb., the energy class must appear directly in the listing, not only in the contract. Penalties run up to CZK 100,000 for an individual and CZK 200,000 for a company, issued by the State Energy Inspectorate. From 2027, under EU rules, a valid certificate will also become a precondition for signing the contract, not just for advertising.

The second is broker liability for accuracy under Act No. 39/2020 Sb. on real estate brokerage. The Czech Trade Inspection Authority doesn't just have this on paper: agency Prolux Consulting was hit with a record CZK 5 million fine for misleading clients, and another firm was fined for advertising a "3+1, 82 m²" flat that was actually 75 m² (69 m² excluding cellar and balcony). Floor area, layout and energy class in a listing are legally binding text, not just sales copy.

Green claims face a tougher year from September

Building certification is stopping being a nice-to-have. JLL research across global markets shows a rental premium of 7.1 to 11.6% for certified space, and a Maastricht University study for RICS measured up to an 18% premium for BREEAM-certified London offices. Those are hard numbers you can bring to a leasing negotiation, not a soft claim for a brochure.

At the same time, real legal risk around greenwashing is arriving. The EU directive meant to replace the withdrawn Green Claims Directive (Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition, EmpCo) is due for national transposition by March 2026 and becomes binding from September 2026. It bans generic, unsubstantiated eco-claims and "climate neutral" claims based only on offsets. A BREEAM or LEED certificate backs up a claim; a vague "eco-friendly living for future generations" with no evidence behind it does not.

A virtual tour stopped being a bonus

Per Zillow data from the US market, 73% of new-construction buyers say a 3D tour gives a better sense of space than photos, 67% wish more listings had one, and 71% of sellers are more likely to pick an agent who offers a virtual tour. In Czechia, Sreality.cz has said its use of 3D tours (Matterport) doubled between 2020 and 2021, and in October 2024 it relaunched the platform with a push on video tours and AI-generated listing descriptions. Anyone still selling a new-build on photos and a floor plan alone is losing inquiries that never even bother to get in touch.

Investor marketing runs on different rules

An institutional audience doesn't buy on the emotion of a render. It buys on yield, tenant quality and data transparency, which is exactly why Cushman & Wakefield, Savills, CBRE, JLL and Colliers all invest in their own quarterly market reports rather than sales collateral alone. The report you're reading behind the scenes of this very article is itself a marketing tool: it builds trust before the first offer ever lands. Amsterdam's The Edge is a neat example of turning this toward a tenant too. Marketed as "the world's smartest building" with the highest BREEAM rating ever awarded (98.4%), it became a recruiting argument for anchor tenant Deloitte, with 62% of job candidates citing the building as a reason they wanted to work there. The building sells more than space, it sells easier hiring.

The most common mistakes in real estate marketing

• The same campaign for buyers and investors. An emotional render doesn't move an investor, a yield table doesn't move a flat buyer.
• Placemaking starts at the sales launch. Without years of relationship with the location, the first sales campaign sells into a vacuum.
• Inaccurate floor area or a missing energy label. Not a copy mistake, a finable misleading practice.
• Vague eco-promises. A legal risk from September 2026, not just a matter of taste.
• Photos only, no 3D tour. Most new-build shoppers now expect one as standard.
• No owned database at all. Live off portals alone and you pay for every new inquiry again, on every future project too.

My take: the budget goes to the wrong place

Most budget on new projects goes into renders and paid listings on portals, the "during construction" phase. The data says value is actually created earlier, in placemaking and the relationship with the location, and later, in how accurately and credibly the listing is written. The middle phase is necessary, but it's also the easiest for a competitor to copy. Whoever wants to win invests at the edges, not the middle.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Cushman & Wakefield, Investment Market 2025 and CEE Investment Report · Deloitte, Property Index and Develop Index (Central Europe) · Act No. 39/2020 Sb. on real estate brokerage · Act No. 406/2000 Sb. on energy management (PENB) · Directive (EU) 2024/1275 (EPBD) · Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EmpCo) · Czech Trade Inspection Authority (ČOI), rulings · Central Group, Skanska Residential, Trigema (joint market analysis) · Sekyra Group, Rohan Design District · Zaha Hadid Architects, Penta Real Estate (Masaryčka) · Zillow, Consumer Housing Trends Report 2025 · JLL and Maastricht University/RICS (certification premiums) · Sreality.cz.

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