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- Meter of change: more than half of housing in new buildings has not been sold for months
Meter of change: more than half of housing in new buildings has not been sold for months
Only 32% of the area in the primary housing market has been sold, analysts told Izvestia. The largest share of unclaimed square meters is in the Krasnodar and Krasnoyarsk territories, in Bashkiria, Voronezh, Leningrad and Rostov regions. This situation has developed due to the increase in construction areas with low demand. What else is the trend related to and whether it threatens bankruptcy for developers is in the Izvestia article.
How many square meters in idle time
In recent years, fewer and fewer apartments have been sold in new buildings per year of their commissioning, analysts calculated for Izvestia based on data from the Unified Housing Information System (UISWS). If in February 2021, about 70% of the area was implemented in projects, then in the same month of 2022 - 66%, in 2025 - 52%, and as of February 2026 — 51%. We are talking about housing that has gone on sale.
At the same time, total sales fell from 47% in February 2021 to 42% in 2022 and 34% in 2024, settling at 32% in 2025-2026, said Irina Pashkovskaya, head of the analytics center at the federal company Floors. So, this February, 32% of the total area was sold on the primary market, while the rest remained unrealized, including 24% of the lots for which sales have not yet been opened.
"Not in any region of Russia with large (over 1 million square meters By primary markets, the percentage of total sales of residential premises does not exceed 50%, for the most part it does not exceed 30%, analysts of <url> told Izvestia. — In 15 regions, the sale of apartments in houses with commissioning in 2026 does not exceed half of the total volume of housing."
According to experts, we are talking about about 1.6 million unsold apartments.
The share of sold housing is particularly low in regions with active construction and in cities with millions of residents. About 80% of the residential area in Krasnodar and Krasnoyarsk Territories has not been sold, 78% in Bashkortostan, 76% in Voronezh Region, Perm Region and Leningrad Region.
The situation is slightly better in Rostov (75%), Novosibirsk (74%), Chelyabinsk and Omsk (73% each), Volgograd and Sverdlovsk regions (68% each), while the minimum values are shown by Moscow (52%), St. Petersburg‑St. Petersburg (61%), Moscow Region (63%), Tatarstan (64%), Samara (66%) and Nizhny Novgorod regions (67%).
The increase in unsold housing was a natural result of a large-scale increase in construction in 2023-2024, when the peak of project launches was reached.
"The accumulated construction volumes are record—breaking," said the head of the analytical center "Movement.<url>" by Yan Gravshin. — Demand can't keep up with them. Naturally, the percentage of sales is decreasing.
At the same time, of the 260 billion rubles of mortgages issued in February for the purchase of housing in houses under construction, about 30% are in the capital regions — Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg.‑St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, follows from the data of the Central Bank.
The Ministry of Construction is rather restrained about the situation. The average sale of housing in Russia, taking into account the commissioning of 2026, is about 60% or more, Nikita Stasishin, Deputy Minister of Construction and Housing of the Russian Federation, told Izvestia. According to him, this is indeed less than a year or two ago, but there are objective reasons for the slowdown in construction. He noted that in order not to take out an expensive loan, developers today accumulate money for escrow, so the rate is lower and does not transfer to the cost per square meter.
Why aren't apartments being sold up
The situation with unsold housing varies greatly by region, construction stage, and project class.
— There is traditionally a significant amount of supply on active display. This is a normal model for development, where sales are distributed over the entire construction cycle," explained Alexey Artoshin, Commercial Director of Glavstroy Regions. — According to our estimates, the increase in the share of unrealized lots largely reflects a slowdown in sales.
This situation was formed under the influence of several factors at once: the cancellation of mass preferential mortgages, the adjustment of conditions under the family program and the tightening of checks at banks significantly narrowed the circle of borrowers. According to the expert, this was overlaid with a high key one, which made the market mortgage virtually inaccessible to a significant part of buyers.
— Additional pressure is exerted by an increase in the cost of construction — an increase in the cost of labor, materials and financing, — said Alexey Artoshin.
In addition, during the period of high demand at the peak of the popularity of preferential programs, the supply structure has changed — there is a shortage of affordable apartments at the final stage of the house's readiness, Irina Pashkovskaya said.
— The advent of project financing has reduced the price difference between apartments purchased at the excavation stage and just before the house was put into operation, — the expert added. — Investment activity in the primary market has decreased, including due to the fact that the price of a meter on it turned out to be significantly higher than on the secondary market.
Buyers are increasingly taking housing closer to the final stage of readiness, the share of sales in houses due in January-February 2026, according to her, was at the level of 77%.
— At the initial stage of construction, the growth of the unsold share became a new reality of the market, — Irina Pashkovskaya emphasized. — In addition, some developers deliberately do not bring a large pool of apartments to the market in order not to create an oversupply and to realize the most liquid objects closer to the end of construction.
At the same time, companies' costs continue to rise.
— This does not allow developers to flexibly reduce prices in order to sell off the leftovers, — says the director of the portal "Vseostroike.Russian Federation" by Svetlana Opryshko. — Accordingly, the sale leaves much to be desired. The problem is more acute in regions with low effective demand.
What awaits the real estate market
The higher the volume of unsold housing, the longer the developer does not receive money for escrow accounts and the longer he has to live with a heavy credit burden on project financing.
— This is especially sensitive for the industry now, because the housing project financing portfolio has already reached 10.2 trillion rubles, and debt coverage with escrow funds in the fourth quarter of 2025 amounted to 69%. At the same time, about 1.4 trillion rubles have not yet been credited to escrow accounts, mainly due to housing sold in installments," explained Vladimir Chernov, analyst at Freedom Finance Global.
With a weak sale, the developer pays off the debt more slowly, pays interest longer, and holds working capital worse. So far, the weighted average interest rate on loans to a developer remains noticeably lower than a typical corporate loan, at 10.2%, but with prolonged weak sales, the safety margin is rapidly decreasing.
"Bankruptcy risks have increased in 2026, but I wouldn't talk about an imminent wave across the entire sector," the expert said. — The escrow system is still holding back a sharp systemic crisis, because buyers' money is isolated, and banks are interested in completing projects. But the risk of spot problems increases dramatically for companies with low sales, high installment rates, weak equity and concentration in overheated locations.
If demand does not recover, there may be delays in the construction period and even a change of control over projects, up to the transfer to the ownership of banks, Svetlana Opryshko believes.
— But this is rather a pessimistic scenario. The key rate is gradually decreasing, and even a small decrease "unfreezes" some of the consumer demand. I think the regulator will continue its policy of easing, mortgage rates will also decrease, which will allow buyers to resolve the housing issue, and developers to increase sales," the expert said.
In the medium term, a transition to a "buyer's market" is expected, where competition will be not for volume, but for the uniqueness of the product, says Yulia Pichugina, director of analytics and pricing at the Novaya Era development company (a subsidiary of Russian Railways-Real Estate).
"Developers have already begun to adjust their plans for the construction of new facilities, trying to balance the supply," she said.
According to David Khudoyan, CEO of Optima Development, the growth rate of unsold housing may continue in 2026, especially in regions with an overheated supply. Small and medium-sized developers, as well as those who work in the mass housing segment, where sales are slower, are most sensitive to this situation, said Kristina Gudym, an analyst at Finam Financial Group.
"The further development of the market will largely depend on changes in monetary policy and possible measures to support demand from the government," she said.
Without further rate cuts and a noticeable reduction in the cost of market mortgages, the problem of unsold housing will not go away quickly, experts emphasize. For strong federal players, this is likely to result in a slowdown in launches, discounts, increased installments, and pressure on profitability. For weak regional developers, 2026 may be a period of restructuring, postponement and withdrawal from the market.
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