Meter range: due to high prices, Russians began to buy smaller apartments

In 2025, Moscow residents moderated their appetites by buying apartments: the average area of purchased housing in new business-class buildings (now the most massive segment of the capital's market) decreased by 13% over the year. And over the past ten years, this figure has decreased from 70.6 to 55.2 square meters. When buying larger apartments, people chose remote areas or a lower class of new buildings. Experts attribute the situation to rising housing prices. About why else buyers have shifted to smaller lots and whether to expect a change in trend, see the Izvestia article.

How has the area of apartments decreased

Over the past ten years, transactions in the Moscow business-class real estate segment have shown a steady trend towards a decrease in the average lot area, analysts at Forma told Izvestia. From 2015 to 2025, the figure decreased from 70.6 to a record 55.2 sq. m.

"In 2025, this trend was most noticeable — the average lot area decreased by 13%," Forma added.

The trend was confirmed by Rigina Gordeeva, founder of the Bezfilter real estate agency. It is related to the fact that the average cost per square meter in new business-class buildings in Moscow has increased by about 70-80% over the past five years.

"If in 2019-2020 a square in this segment cost about 230-260 thousand rubles, then at the beginning of 2026 it is already in the range of 450-520 thousand per square meter, depending on the project and the stage of construction," Gordeeva said. — The purchase budget is growing much slower than the price per square meter. To meet it, buyers simply reduce the area of the apartment.

Irina Pashkovskaya, head of the analysis center of the federal company "Floors", also noted the impact of the increased cost per square meter on reducing the average area of apartments sold.

"If this was offset by preferential mortgage programs in mass—market housing, then their impact was minimal in business-class housing," she said. — Buyers are becoming more practical and are not ready to overpay for extra square meters, preferring to choose residential complexes with good infrastructure inside, where there are convenient coworking spaces and public spaces.

In 2016, the average area of apartments sold in business class buildings was about 80-85 square meters. m. By 2026, it decreased to 54-56 square meters. m, said Irina Pashkovskaya.

In the comfort class, the average area of purchased apartments is about 40.7 square meters, in the premium segment - about 66.5 square meters, said Dmitry Polskoy, head of digital sales development at Tashir Estate.

"In higher housing classes, the area of an apartment is still an important element of product value, so the dynamics of its reduction is much weaker," he said. — In the mass segment, a large share of purchases of small—area apartments is generated by investment demand, focused on the most liquid formats - studios and studio apartments.

For example, as of the beginning of March 2026, an average of 46.7 square meters could be purchased for 100 million rubles in the elite new buildings market in Moscow, analysts at Kalinka Ecosystems noted. This figure turned out to be 5% lower than the result of the beginning of March 2025, when the buyer could count on 49 square meters for a similar amount.

Apartment spread: the price of new buildings has increased since the beginning of the year in all major cities

Most of all, the "square" rose in price in Moscow, Kazan, Perm, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.

Why choose small lots

The main tool for buying a home with a mortgage in 2025 was a family mortgage at 6%. However, the limit of 12 million rubles in the business class segment allows customers to purchase mostly small lots, Forma added. This has led to a shift in demand within the borders of "old" Moscow in favor of more compact housing formats. The trend intensified after the cancellation of fees for the issuance of family mortgages by developers in the second quarter of 2025.

The mortgage changes of the last two years have had a strong impact on the market, Rigina Gordeeva added. After the actual completion of the massive preferential mortgage and the growth of market rates to levels of about 20%, buyers became much more cautious about the loan amount. As a result, people are more likely to choose more compact formats: euro forks and Euro dolls, where the kitchen is combined with the living room.

Another factor is that developers are adapting to demand and increasing the share of compact lots in projects.

With a budget of about 20-25 million rubles, some buyers, mainly families, are ready to consider projects away from the city center in order to improve their living conditions, added Olga Pavlik, Forma's Director of Analytics.

"You can get more meters there more often," she noted. — First of all, compact two-room lots of 50-60 sq. m. Additionally, the choice is influenced by the availability of purchases under a family mortgage: with a limited limit, buyers are more likely to focus on formats that fit into the target budget.

According to Dmitry Polsky, the trend towards optimizing areas will continue, but further noticeable reduction in square footage will be limited by the requirements for ergonomics and quality of layouts. Therefore, in the coming years, the main focus will not be on reducing the area per se, but on improving the efficiency of planning solutions and the functionality of apartments.