Demand for new buildings in the Moscow region has fallen to lockdown levels
The current level of demand in the primary real estate market has fallen to minimum levels, showing a worse result than in the period of early 2022, and the number of registered housing units is comparable to the figures in the spring of 2020, when the first lockdown was introduced. This was reported to Izvestia by analysts of the aggregator of new buildings Redcat, having studied the real estate market.
According to the study, demand in Moscow and the Moscow Region continued to decline in February. This is payback for very active sales in the fourth quarter of 2025, when, against the background of expectations of a change in the family mortgage, the demand for future periods, specifically the first quarter of 2026, was exhausted. Moreover, in January, demand was supported by transactions for which mortgages were approved in November and December, but in February there were practically no such transactions left.
A total of 5,48 thousand were registered in the Moscow region. This is 30% less than it was in January, and 48% less than it was in February 2025. Historically, the current level corresponds to the indicators that were recorded during the first covid lockdown in May—June 2020 (5.1-5.6 thousand DDU).
The deepest drawdown in demand was noted in New Moscow: 39% fewer apartments and apartments were sold in February than in January. And over the course of the year, Moscow's new territories lost 55% of demand. The capital within the old borders sank by 25% in a month, and 49% of transactions were lost compared to February last year. In the Moscow region, developers missed 39% of transactions year-on-year, and the market lost 31% in a month.
In the old borders of Moscow, there was not only a reduction in demand, but also a continued change in its structure. So, in February, the affordable segment was particularly affected again: the number of remote control units here decreased by 34%, while in business class the reduction was 27%, and new premium class buildings generally showed an increase of 16%. As a result, the share of the affordable segment in the overall demand structure has decreased to 27%, compared with an average of 33% last year and 38% in 2024.
At the same time, the structure of customer requests for the number of rooms has changed. Almost the entire drop in demand was concentrated in the segment of the most compact lots: they lost 39% of transactions in a month. As a result, the share of single-family homes and studios in the total structure dropped to 51%, analysts at the Redcat aggregator of new buildings note that they have not seen such an indicator since September 2024.
Despite the change in the terms of the family program, mortgages remain the main driving factor of sales, in February their share decreased by 10 percentage points, but still remains high: now 67% of all lots in the region are purchased with loans. In the old borders, the share of mortgages decreased to 58.9%, in New Moscow — to 78.7%, and in the near Moscow region — to 77.4%.
"In general, the market is experiencing the consequences of another "mortgage swing." Demand, which could have been evenly distributed, was concentrated at the end of 2025. We expect demand to stabilize in the second quarter and the subsequent activation of buyers for a month and a half before the next changes in the program - the government must provide new offers by June 1, 2026, in which rates will be differentiated by the number of children, which will again cause a short-term increase in demand," says Natalia Shatalina, CEO of the aggregator of new buildings Redcat.
Mikhail Goldberg, head of the DOM.RF analytical center, said on March 2 that the average price increase for Russian new buildings could reach 10% this year. The specialist drew attention to the uneven dynamics of the real estate market by region.
All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
