DOES RENT DEREGULATION INFLUENCE HOUSING TENURE CHOICE? THE CASE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The choice between buying and renting house is usually referred to as tenure choice. Existing literature defines several typical factors (patterns) which influence this key decision every household has to make. In our analysis we propose one more factor which might be of interest. Based on the data covering last phase of the rent deregulation process in the Czech Republic (CR) in 2005 – 2011 we assess to what extent rent deregulation in the CR has influenced the tenure choice patterns. Our analysis using logit model did prove that regulated rents were an important factor affecting tenure choice. After deregulation households living in apartments with regulated rent preferred to buy house rather than stay in rental sector. The results show that also in the CR was tenure choice influenced by household income, education, marital status. By contrast, gender, age, number of children or retired persons in the household turned out to be insignificant.