Secondary housing continues to outpace new buildings in terms of price growth

Prices for secondary housing in Russia continued to rise faster in July than in the primary market. The cost per square meter of ready-made apartments increased by 1% per month and by 10.4% per year, while new buildings rose in price by 0.6% and 9.1%, respectively, according to a study by Domclick and the Center for Financial Analysis Sbera (available to Izvestia).

The average price per square meter in new buildings in July reached 191.4 thousand rubles, in the secondary market — 128.4 thousand rubles. At the same time, the "fresh" secondary housing continues to converge with primary housing: the cost per square meter in houses built no more than ten years ago has increased to 189.2 thousand rubles. Thus, the gap with new buildings decreased to 1.2% from 3.9% in June. Prices in this segment increased by 27% over the year.

In the primary market, price growth accelerated for the second month in a row, but remains relatively low. Analysts attribute this to a short-term surge in demand at the end of June before the expected change in the terms of the family mortgage. At the same time, it did not lead to an improvement in sales figures: the share of monthly sales in the volume of ongoing construction in July decreased to 1.3%, with a comfortable level for developers of 2%. The volume of unsold housing remained at the level of 83 million square meters. m.

The financial burden on developers continues to grow. By the end of June, the coverage of their debt with funds on escrow accounts decreased to a historic low of 69.6%, and the uncovered part of the debt reached 3.3 trillion rubles. The amount of debt per square meter of housing under construction also increased to a maximum of 90.6 thousand rubles.

In the secondary market, the average offer price reached a record 147.1 thousand rubles per square meter. The gap between the offer price and the value of the actual transactions increased to 14.6% from 11.8% a month earlier. At the same time, analysts expect that finished housing will continue to rise in price faster than new buildings due to the strengthening of its position in competition for a buyer.