Work bonus: in Russia, the conditions of the experiment on preferential mortgages for officials are changing

Young employees of federal agencies participating in the experiment on preferential mortgages for civil servants and working in Donbass and Novorossiya will be able to apply for participation in the program without having to meet the standard requirements established for other regions of the country, TASS reports, citing a cabinet resolution. Previously, only officials under the age of 35 from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor and other departments who participated in the program, became winners of the "Leaders of Russia" or "Best by Profession" contests, and were awarded state or government awards. Izvestia investigated whether the experiment could affect the housing market and which other categories of citizens could receive preferential mortgages.

Targeted support

The mortgage program for government employees differs significantly from all other preferential mortgages operating in Russia. As in the case of other subsidized mortgages, part of the interest rate is covered by budgetary funds. However, the compensation method is different here, and the amount that borrowers will have to repay on their own is higher.

If for most preferential mortgages a specific percentage of the rate that the borrower pays is fixed, then for civil servants the emphasis is on that part of the rate that is compensated by the state. This is not a fixed value, but a value that varies depending on the key rate.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Eduard Kornienko

In addition, unlike other preferential mortgage schemes, where the budget subsidizes only the interest on the loan, in the program for civil servants, compensation also applies to the cost of housing itself, but only within certain limits. At the same time, part of this amount is used for the initial payment, and the rest is used to reduce the principal debt on the mortgage.

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The scale of this program itself is not so large as to have a significant impact on the level of demand for housing, an expert from the Popular Front told Izvestia. Analytics", General Director of the Rating Agency of the Construction Complex (RASK) Fyodor Vylomov. In this case, the targeting criterion works precisely: it is necessary to support the recruitment of young personnel to civil service in the territory of Donbass and Novorossiya, to create attractive conditions for them, including in terms of improving housing conditions.

— In general, a preferential mortgage program at 2% is operating on the territory of the DPR, LPR, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. It is available to all citizens for new buildings, and it also applies to secondary housing for doctors, social workers, and teachers. The only caveat is that housing should still be on the territory of Novorossiya and Donbass, while there are no such territorial restrictions for young employees of federal agencies under mortgages," he noted.

A builder on the construction of an apartment building in Donetsk

Photo: TASS/Dmitry Yagodkin

The expansion of the preferential mortgage program may have an impact on the real estate market, but its scale will be local and limited, Petr Shcherbachenko, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, confirmed to Izvestia.

"The program is aimed at a narrow category of citizens, and the number of potential participants in the program will not be massive, so it will not significantly change the national demand for housing and, consequently, prices at the federal level," he stressed. "This experiment is not comparable in scale to the family mortgage program, which affects millions of Russians and supports high demand everywhere.

In his opinion, no significant impact should be expected on the general market indicators of real estate values. The expert clarified that price increases are possible only locally and in individual cities included in the program, and this will be mainly due to increased demand from a new group of participants in the preferential initiative. According to him, such fluctuations will affect only limited market segments and will not lead to a sharp change in average housing prices nationwide.

Program expansion

Peter Shcherbachenko is convinced that the expansion of preferential programs is a steady trend. Based on the current state policy, in his opinion, it is possible to identify possible directions for the further dissemination of such measures.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Konkov

In particular, according to him, the benefits can cover specialists working in critical industries where the government seeks to support import substitution and stimulate its own production. This may include engineers and highly skilled workers in key industries, as well as scientists and researchers working in priority scientific fields such as microelectronics or biotechnology, he noted.

"The main trend is the targeted provision of benefits to particularly sought—after categories as a tool for solving specific personnel and socio—economic problems of the state," he believes.

Give me five: Russia may launch preferential mortgages for teachers, doctors and scientists

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In early August, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin instructed to study and work out the initiatives of the Federation Council related to improving the rules for granting mortgage loans. Currently, the relevant departments have another task — to consider proposals related to the creation of conditions that allow for more active development of the system of providing rental housing for young families on a preferential basis.

At the same time, Alexey Zabotkin, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, said earlier that the regulator considers it fundamentally important to maintain a strictly targeted and limited format of preferential mortgage initiatives. In particular, as specified, the option of extending family mortgages to families with children over the age of 14 is being discussed.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Alexander Kazakov

In general, the Bank of Russia supports selective assistance measures aimed specifically at specific groups of borrowers who find it more difficult to resolve housing issues without government support. At the same time, as the deputy chairman emphasized, the regulator considers an excessive expansion of such initiatives undesirable, as this can lead to a distortion of market mechanisms and create an imbalance in the real estate market.

A review published earlier by the Bank of Russia on financial stability issues for the period from the fourth quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025 indicated that the likelihood of a bubble in the primary housing market has increased again. Analysts of the regulator explained this trend by the fact that the dynamics of prices for new housing significantly outpaced both the growth of incomes of citizens and the change in the cost of the rental segment. It is the gap between the earnings of the population and the rapid rise in the cost of square meters that is becoming a key factor that creates risks of overheating in the housing sector.

Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Construction, but no response had been received at the time of publication.