The share of mortgages in the purchase of new buildings in Russia rose to 82%
Only 18% of transactions in the primary market in Russia do not depend on mortgages, so any changes in credit conditions now can reduce demand to critical levels, told September 22 "Izvestia" in the federal plant of wall materials "Winzer".
"Over the past few years, the primary housing market's dependence on mortgages has grown significantly, which creates significant risks for the construction industry. The cessation of subsidizing mortgage rates for the purchase of housing under construction can reduce demand to critical values, when developers will be forced to reduce their plans to bring new projects to the market, for fear of not filling escrow accounts to the required levels," explained Denis Zhalnin, director of the federal plant of wall materials "Winzer".
According to the expert, the secondary and suburban real estate markets are more flexible and are already adapting to the existing realities of mortgage lending. 45% of ready apartments are already purchased without borrowed funds, in the segment of countryside real estate the share of purchases at the expense of own funds is even higher - 62%.
"Now about 70% of apartments in new buildings are purchased under the family mortgage. The limits of banks on this program are running out, and some of the major banks have already tightened the terms of issuance, increasing the requirements for the minimum size of the down payment up to 50%, in this case, it becomes more difficult to buy a starter home, and those who improve living conditions, need apartments at the final stage of readiness, which are not so many in the market, "- continued Zhalnin.
The expert noted that developers now, on the one hand, will strengthen the work to reduce the cost of construction, on the other - more restrained to bring new projects to the market to ensure sufficient filling of escrow accounts in the face of risks of declining demand.
"Optimization of plans to bring to the market new projects may affect the volume of available supply of apartments in new buildings in the future 2-3 years, if by then the situation with mortgage lending will normalize, it will provoke a new wave of price growth due to the violation of the balance between supply and demand", - summed up Zhalnin.
Earlier, on September 17, it became known that at the end of August 2024 in the primary real estate market of Moscow in the segments "comfort" and "business" was realized 2.4 thousand apartments and apartments. At the same time, the total volume of sold housing amounted to 124.8 thousand square meters, the revenue of developers exceeded 51 billion rubles.
