In most metropolitan areas, rental housing has grown stronger than mortgage payments.

In only three million-plus cities in Russia, monthly mortgage payments were higher than the average rental rates for one-room apartments. This was reported to Izvestia on Saturday, April 19, by the federal company Floors.

"Over the year, average rental rates for one—bedroom apartments in Russia increased by 17.8%, and the average cost per square meter in new buildings increased by 15.9%, which increased the number of million-plus cities where family mortgage payments were lower than the rental rates for similar housing," said Deputy head of the mortgage department of the federal company Floors Tatiana Reshetnikova.

According to the expert's calculations, last year monthly payments on a family mortgage with a down payment of 20% and a loan term of 30 years for an apartment of 35 sq. m. m was higher than average rental rates by 24.7% in Ufa, by 10.9% in Nizhny Novgorod, by 1.4% in Omsk, by 1.2% in Kazan and by 0.7% in Samara. This year, they were higher only in Ufa (by 11.1%), Omsk (by 1.5%) and Nizhny Novgorod (by 0.1%).

"Over the past year, average rental rates due to a shortage of affordable supply in most of Russia's largest cities turned out to be frankly overheated, which further increased the attractiveness of purchasing your own housing, both with the use of family mortgages and installments from developers," continues Reshetnikova.

Yekaterinburg ranks first in the ranking of family mortgage payments, where they make up 71.1% of the average rental rate, Rostov—on-Don ranks second (74.2%), Volgograd ranks third (74.5%), Novosibirsk ranks fourth (74.5%), Samara ranks fifth (75.7%). Moscow (78.1%), Krasnoyarsk (79%), Chelyabinsk (81.3%), St. Petersburg (84.6%) and Kazan (90.6%) are also in the top ten.

"Now the volume of supply on the rental market is growing and we note a gradual cooling of rental rates. However, this trend will last until the start of the traditional peak demand in July–September, when the gap between the rental price and monthly mortgage payments may grow even more," the expert concluded.

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Earlier, on February 21, it was reported that 40.4% of Russians surveyed believe that commercial real estate is the most attractive for investment in 2025. Another 53.8% would choose residential real estate for investment, according to the results of a study by analysts at the Luchi resort.