Class politics: Massive new buildings are disappearing from Moscow
Affordable housing in Moscow is rapidly losing ground. In the first half of 2026, not a single new economy and comfort class residential complex was launched in old Moscow. The volume of supply decreased by 35%, and prices continued to rise. Experts attribute this to the falling profitability of such projects and the gradual blurring of boundaries between housing classes. What is happening with the mass segment and whether it will remain in the metropolitan market is in the Izvestia article.
Where does the mass segment disappear to
The segment of affordable new buildings within the borders of old Moscow continues to shrink: since the beginning of 2026, developers have not launched a single new project, and only 11 new buildings have begun to be built in residential complexes already under construction. This was reported to Izvestia by analysts of the Metrium company.
As a result, by the end of the first half of the year, only 9.6 thousand lots in 74 projects remained on sale. This indicator has hardly changed in six months, but the supply has decreased by 35% over the year. At the same time, the average price per square meter increased by almost 20% to 425 thousand rubles.
— The main reasons for the reduction were the continuing shortage of supply and cooling demand after the tightening of family mortgage conditions. In total, 7,1 thousand contracts were concluded. This is 53% less than in the previous half of the year," said Yulia Ivanova, Director of the Analytics and Consulting Department at Metrium.
The maximum dynamics of supply growth for the first half of the year was recorded in the Northern Administrative District. ZelAO, CAO and ZAO have added a bit. There is a decline in other locations.
"Due to the high key rate and the strict requirements of the city, the construction of mass housing has become significantly less profitable," Yulia Ivanova added. — Companies continued to refocus their portfolios on business class and more expensive segments. There is a shortage of supply in the market, the volume of which has increased by an insignificant 3% in six months.
Due to the low activity of developers in launching new projects, the share of supply at the initial stage of construction decreased to 19.6% in six months.
A similar trend is observed in the country as a whole: the share of standard housing in new projects has been declining for several years, said Yulia Bocharnikova, executive director of the federal company Etagi.
According to her, the share of typical housing in new starts decreased from 26.7% in 2023 to 21.3% in 2024 and 17.8% in 2025.
— For old Moscow, the reduction in the volume of construction of typical housing is justified by the economics of the project. Moreover, this trend is gradually spreading to new Moscow, where the class of housing is increasing with the development of infrastructure and transport accessibility," said Yulia Bocharnikova.
A similar situation is observed in the largest cities of Russia.
— Standard projects have become a kind of "niche" story, they are being built on the outskirts or in new locations where customer demand has not yet been formed, and the prospects for the development of the area can last for years, — she said. — And the problem here is not that developers do not want to build standard housing, it's just that it is difficult for massive new buildings to compete with the secondary market, so the profitability of such projects tends to zero, since the only advantage of such housing is in price.
How is the housing class determined?
Indeed, a shortage of standard projects is gradually forming in Moscow, their share in the total supply is decreasing, which is reflected in an increase in the average price, said Rigina Gordeeva, founder of the Bezfilter real estate agency.
"Most likely, this trend will gradually shift to New Moscow, especially in those locations where the land bank is limited, but all the necessary infrastructure for a comfortable life, including transport, has already been created," she believes.
In parallel with the reduction of the mass segment, the boundaries between housing classes are being erased, said Igor Rastorguev, a leading analyst at AMarkets. Formal criteria (economy, comfort, business, premium) increasingly do not coincide with the actual content of projects.
"Developers are adding higher—end elements— landscaping, engineering systems, common areas — to projects that would previously have been priced and located in the mass segment, while raising the price for them," he said. — This explains why, with a reduction in the supply of mass housing, the average price per square meter continues to grow and has increased by almost 20% over the year.
The housing class in Russia is an abstract concept, since the new building market has evolved a lot over the past five to ten years, said Denis Zhalnin, CEO of the People development company.
—The parameters that were inherent in luxury housing 10-15 years ago have gradually become the basic minimum for ordinary comfort-class projects," the expert explained. — In the usual sense, typical housing is, for example, Khrushchev buildings, which were built according to almost the same project, later panel houses of the same 121 series.
The housing class is determined not only by the characteristics of the project itself — location, infrastructure and content, but also by the quality of its further operation. Therefore, the declared level may not coincide with the real one, Rigina Gordeeva said.
"You can create a cool project that meets all the unspoken parameters of a business class, but make a mistake with the management company and such a residential complex will depreciate very quickly," she said. — Nominally, it will be business class, but in fact, the level of service in it may be worse than in ordinary housing. This story applies to any type of house.
In typical residential complexes, it is difficult for developers to meet the expectations of modern buyers, and the result is a double trap: low profitability of the project and further difficulties with the sale of apartments, Denis Zhalnin added.
— Every developer in competition for a buyer tries to surprise with something, and so, project by project, we are moving further away from typical stories. For the construction of mass housing, most likely, in modern realities, government participation is needed — in terms of infrastructure preparation and additional measures to stimulate demand. The availability of real estate should be assessed not by belonging to a particular class, but by demand, sales and price.
The complete disappearance of mass housing will not happen, but within the historical borders of Moscow it is indeed approaching the status of a scarce and almost niche product, Igor Rastorguev confirmed.
— In central and attractive areas from the point of view of location, the economics of projects are developing in favor of more expensive formats: at the current cost of land, financing and construction, premium projects provide developers with greater profitability, while mass housing does not allow them to obtain comparable margins, — he confirmed.
And prolongation of the current family mortgage conditions will be an important driver of consumer activity in the third quarter of 2026, says Yaroslav Gutnov, founder of SIS Development. He recalled that demand had increased markedly in June after the government announced further changes to the terms of the family mortgage.
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