Sales culture: the number of urgent apartment sales increased by 30% in Russia
The share of urgent apartment sales is growing rapidly across the country, market participants told Izvestia. In the Moscow region, such transactions accounted for 12% of the total market, and about 30% in Russia as a whole. Apartments are sold at a significant discount for a week or more. The unavailability of mortgages has led to a significant increase in the sales time for second homes and an increase in the share of alternative transactions, when the purchase of a new apartment occurs in parallel with the sale of an existing one, experts said. About why Russians are urgently selling their homes is in the Izvestia article.
How urgently apartments are being sold
In June 2025, the share of urgent apartment sales reached 12% of the total volume of offers on the market in Moscow and the Moscow region, industry participants told Izvestia. In Russia, this figure is approaching 30% of the total supply and continues to grow.
A year earlier, the share of such sales in the capital did not exceed 8% and now the maximum figure has been fixed since 2022, Evgeny Shavnev, CEO of Flip LLC investment company, told Izvestia.
"In 67% of cases, such apartments are mortgaged or their owners are burdened with other loans," he said. — General financial difficulties are also often the reason for an urgent sale. That is, a person realizes that they cannot cope with payments, and decides to get rid of real estate by paying off their debts in full. In most cases, the loan at the sale stage is not overdue when it comes to mortgage real estate.
The unavailability of market mortgages has led to a significant increase in the time for the sale of second homes and an increase in the proportion of counter transactions when the purchase of new housing occurs in parallel with the sale of existing ones, added Sergey Zaitsev, Sales Director of the federal company Floors.
— Naturally, in these conditions, the number of urgent transactions is growing, for which owners are willing to make a discount of 10-15% of the initial price, — he said. — Against this background, the average discount on the sale of ready—made housing in Russia over the past three months has reached record levels of 6.2–6.3%. Naturally, for the most part, buyers are now trying to find objects where the owners are interested in an urgent sale, and thereby get the maximum discount.
There may be several reasons for an urgent sale, the expert added. These include the need to reduce the debt burden, the desire to improve housing conditions on a family mortgage, an attractive option for improving housing conditions, and the sale of investment apartments when owners fear a decrease in demand.
The general situation on the real estate market in 2025 indicates that supply may exceed effective demand, and sellers have to make concessions, said Ilya Frolov, managing partner of the development company STENOY.
— In some regions, the share of urgent sales for individual projects reaches 55-60%. For example, high discounts are observed in the Voronezh, Krasnodar and Volgograd regions," he noted.
The current market is characterized by the predominance of urgent real estate purchase and sale transactions, the share of which exceeds half of all transactions, confirmed Yulia Dymova, Director of the Est-a-Tet Department of Secondary Real Estate.
"This is due to the fact that when new facilities go on sale, they are implemented much more quickly than those that have been in the pipeline for a long time," the expert explained.
In addition, the share of such sales was boosted by flipper companies that seek out sellers in difficult situations, buy apartments from them below the average market price, and then sell them at a higher cost, added Oksana Plyusnina, a leading real estate expert at the federal developer Zhelezno.
How much do apartments cost for quick transactions
Most often, economy and comfort class housing is put up for urgent sale, the cost of which at the purchase stage was 6-7 million rubles, and now its price has reached more than 12 million rubles, Evgeny Shavnev added.
"The client uses the funds to pay off the remaining debt obligations and tries to purchase housing with the remaining funds, the average amount of which does not exceed 8 million rubles," he said. — The discount amount in case of an urgent sale reaches 5-10%.
At the same time, the deadline for the implementation of such facilities can be at the level of seven days.
During trade-in, prices also decrease by 10-12% from the average market price, since the average sale period is 61 days, Oksana Plyusnina added.
— It should be noted that the term "urgent sale" is rather relative, — Yulia Dymova noted. — Although many people believe that a deal is considered urgent if the object is implemented quickly — literally in one or two weeks. However, such transactions are not always accompanied by significant discounts or significant concessions from the seller.
The success of the rapid sale is due to a competent assessment of the market value of the object at the time of the auction, said Yulia Dymova. The property may be offered at an attractive price relative to similar offers on advertising platforms, but this does not mean that the property is overvalued or undervalued.
"Such sites serve as a tool to attract the buyer's attention, rather than a source of objective assessment of the property," the expert added. — Urgent sales are usually associated with alternatives. People purchase apartments in new buildings, and this is the main driving force, given that the primary market offers the maximum range of financial instruments: preferential mortgage programs, installments and other options.
Artemy Shurygin, President of the Russian Guild of Realtors, did not confirm the trend, but noted that "there have always been transactions on the market where the owner is forced to sell his property as soon as possible, sometimes at a significant discount from the market value."
Currently, the average bidding figures, that is, how much the prices in the ad decrease during the period of their exposure, are in the range of 3.5–4%, said the head of Cian.Analysts" Alexey Popov.
— The share of ads that have been in the database for less than 30 days has increased slightly, but this may reflect the general activity in the market, — he pointed out. — Since the beginning of the year, the number of purchase and sale agreements has been growing.
The main reason is the overflow of demand from the primary market due to more attractive prices and the opportunity to move into a ready—made apartment.
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