Sell-buy: the sale of housing by trade-in revived following the decline in key
The demand for the sale of housing with the help of developers has increased significantly. The recovery occurred due to a decrease in the key rate — transactions on the secondary market are slowly starting to recover. However, in general, the housing market is still at a standstill - demand for more expensive apartments has fallen, especially in the regions, experts say. Against this background, developers have stepped up their work with buyers, offering discounts, reduced rates at the initial stage, tranche mortgages and installments. At the same time, some of these offers may be associated with additional risks for buyers, including possible financial losses during the accelerated completion of the transaction and the subsequent increase in workload after the completion of preferential terms. How to assess the real benefits of such offers and what to look for when choosing them is in the Izvestia article.
How do housing trade-in programs work?
This spring and early summer, developers began to "hunt for clients", offering them to buy an apartment from them on special terms. Demand is gaining through trade-in programs, in which a developer helps a client sell an old home in order to immediately use the money to buy a new one.
Now about half of the companies offer this option, whereas a year earlier less than a third of the players did, said Nuria Bikbova, Deputy Sales Director of the federal company Floors. The largest increase in the number of such offers was recorded in St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, Krasnoyarsk, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Ufa, Kaliningrad and Vladivostok. At the same time, non—standard payment options are also appearing on the market, for example, when they offer to transfer a car to pay for a new apartment.
Yulia Ruzhitskaya, Commercial director of the development company Unikey, also noted the steady growth in demand for trade-in this year. The popularity of the mechanism continues to grow, but the share of such transactions in the sales structure of most projects still does not exceed 10%, agreed Yaroslav Gutnov, founder of SIS Development. At the same time, according to him, a year earlier this figure was twice as low.
According to Yandex Real Estate experts, the number of trade-in transactions increased by 20-25% over the year to June 2026. The main growth factor, according to Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Global, was the reduction in the key interest rate. In June, the regulator lowered it to 14.25%.
Against this background, the activity of Russians in the secondary market has increased slightly, and it has become easier to sell an old apartment. At the same time, clients do not want to make large loans for new housing and prefer to sell the old apartment in order to partially cover the cost of the new one, Yaroslav Gutnov explained.
For the buyer, this is a way to enter into a transaction faster, without waiting for the independent sale of old housing, and for the developer, it is an opportunity to "lock" the client into his sales funnel, explained Nikita Bakhcheev, managing partner of Promplan Group. Against the background of the revival of individual mortgage programs, such mechanisms have become in demand.
What promotions are offered by developers
In general, now every second transaction in the primary housing market takes place using various proposals from developers, said Nuria Bikbova from the Floors company.
Developers continue to expand their mechanisms to stimulate demand: subsidized and tranche mortgages, installments, trade-in programs and other instruments, according to the materials of the Central Bank.
This is due to the general market situation, experts say. The cost of housing is high, and a market mortgage is now practically unavailable. Rates on it have dropped by about 10 percentage points over the year, but they still remain defensive — around 19%, added Stanislav Bannikov, commercial director of Plateau Development.
Demand for increasingly expensive new housing has fallen, especially in the regions, added Natalia Milchakova, a leading analyst at Freedom Global. Therefore, developers are taking urgent measures to avoid losing customers, especially in highly competitive conditions.
— If a year ago developers were focused on one or two of the most popular sales promotion tools, now it is more often a whole complex, which is often assembled for the client according to the principle of the designer, - said Nuria Bikbova.
According to her, one of the most popular options now is a mortgage at a rate of 0.1% for the first year. Then it increases to the basic market conditions. These programs allow clients who do not meet the conditions of a family mortgage to temporarily get a cheaper loan, explained Yulia Ruzhitskaya from Unikey. She clarified: most often, either a rate of about 11.5% per annum is offered for the entire loan term, or short programs for one or two years with an even lower payment.
As a rule, due to the restrictions of the authorities, companies use just the latter option, noted Yaroslav Gutnov from SIS Development. According to him, this allows you not to delay the purchase and overpower the monthly payments against the background of still very expensive market mortgages. However, customers who apply for such loans cannot do without a serious overpayment in the future.
For the most part, there is interest in this mechanism in the mass housing segment, said Denis Zhalnin, CEO of the People development company. In comfort+ and higher projects, these are rather isolated practices.
Tranche mortgages are also returning to the market, which increases the attractiveness of housing under construction over ready-made ones, Nuria Bikbova said. Buyers are offered a minimum amount of payments in the first stages after the purchase or before the house is put into operation.
But the main trend this year is discounts, the expert noted. Developers often focus on reducing the price of a certain pool of apartments in the promotion of their facilities. You can find offers with discounts from 14-15% to 30-40% of the cost of housing in a new building, Natalia Milchakova said.
Another mechanism is installment payment, which involves a tight but flexible payment schedule. As a rule, it is aimed at the audience of the premium segment, noted Stanislav Bannikov. At the same time, the popularity of this tool is falling.: his share in the company's sales structure in 2026 decreased from 19% to 8%, Denis Zhalnin added. Against this background, buyers have become more interested in tranche mortgages.
All these mechanisms have replaced preferential mortgages as the most profitable purchase tool, explained Daria Postnikova, Product Director at City21. Since July 1, 2024, a massive state program for new buildings has ceased to operate in Russia. The authorities also tightened the conditions for family mortgages, and in February 2026, they banned the issuance of more than one such loan per family. The conditions for family housing loans are planned to be changed even more significantly starting this July.
At the same time, the volume of launches of new apartment building projects increased in 2026, according to the Central Bank. According to the results of January – April, it increased by 18%, approximately to the average level of 2023-2024. The growth of projects was observed in all macro-regions except the Far East.
Currently, up to 50% of housing on the primary market remains unsold at the time of the facility's completion, said Evgeny Shavnev, CEO of the Flip real estate investment company. Therefore, the issue of sales stimulation is acute for developers.
What you need to pay attention to when choosing developer stocks
Buyers of new housing should not blindly trust advertising. Before making a purchase on seemingly favorable terms, you need to carefully check all the details of a future transaction, Natalia Milchakova warned.
— A client who sees a package offer should ask himself a few questions before signing any documents. First, what is the price of an apartment without preferential terms? Ask for a price list for the same property without a subsidy. The difference will show the real value of the "gift," advised Valery Tumin, Director of Russian and CIS Markets at Pham Properties.
Discounts on new housing often mask the price increase that has occurred — first the cost is increased, then they begin to decrease from this level, Natalia Milchakova warned. It also happens that large discounts on apartments are offered because the house is rented with significant defects. Then the new apartment will have to be renovated, the cost of which will eat up the promised benefits.
The second step is to specify the amount of the monthly payment after three years. It is worth making sure that you are financially ready for it, and not just for the start (at a reduced percentage), continued Valery Tumin. Common stocks with a very low rate for the initial period or installments at a symbolic percentage are often valid for a limited time, after which the conditions switch to standard bank rates, Natalia Milchakova explained.
In the case of a trade-in, you should find out how much the real discount will be, Valery Tumin emphasized. To do this, you need to order an independent assessment of your apartment before negotiating with the developer: it will take two to three days, but it can save hundreds of thousands of rubles.
Finally, read the contract carefully, especially the clauses on the transfer of ownership, late fines and early repayment terms, the expert concluded. Package proposals from developers are not necessarily a trap, but they are always a complex structure in which the benefits are unevenly distributed.
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