Nowadays, it is not enough to advertise an apartment, says Irina Monastyrskaya, a member of the board of the Russian Guild of Realtors. “The market definitely lives off exchange transactions. The additional payment required to exchange a one-room apartment for a two- or three-room one is the money that people have in their savings or that they can still afford to pay for the mortgage service for this amount,” she says.
Today, banks say that the average cost of mortgages is falling sharply, even in large cities with more than a million inhabitants it does not exceed 3 million rubles, Monastyrskaya adds. At the same time, it is impossible to build an alternative chain with four, five or even six apartments without a realtor, she notes. It is not enough to select an object: it is necessary that it be built within the terms and conditions that each seller announces to his buyer. And if, for example, an apartment with children’s shares is included in the chain and it is necessary to obtain an order from the guardianship authorities, or an object that is already pledged in the bank, then the chain can simply fall apart.
In the primary market, Monastyrskaya notes, during a period of low mortgage rates, clients took out a loan, bought a new building, made repairs after the house was finished, and then sold their old apartment. Now there are no such conditions. “Now most buyers of new buildings face a serious task: to sell the secondary housing first,” says the realtor. “This will mean a large down payment when buying an apartment in a new building.” Therefore, according to her, developers began to establish relations with real estate agencies through an exchange scheme, when the old apartment is “rented” to the developer for sale, and this amount is counted towards the purchase of a new house.
This is not the first time that real estate professionals have encountered periods of the so-called slowdown, a decrease in demand, says Alexander Moskatov, general director of MIEL Sushchevsky. In such conditions, the real estate agent must take a more careful approach to marketing; more in-depth work with property sellers is required in terms of identifying needs and formulating some kind of sales strategy. Competition between sellers is growing.
“I think that the decline will occur under the auspices of competition between sellers, or more precisely, between sellers’ agents, in the secondary market,” he says. “As part of the new building market, the experience of agencies will come to the fore, which will help the buyer to choose a profitable program for the property. “Today, different objects, let’s say, are looking for solutions in terms of prices, discount programs, some kind of installment plans, etc. It is necessary to understand this in time and distinguish, for example, pseudo-discounts from really favorable conditions.”
The market is currently quite calm and it is convenient to make alternative transactions, says Yulia Dymova, director of the secondary real estate department at Est-a-Tet. At the same time, many potential buyers are now opting for renting. And this trend will continue until the end of the year. Among the new trends, we can highlight the reduction of decision-making time for specific buyers and for a specific seller. “The fact is that time is very valuable now, it is the most expensive resource. If you have been made an offer to buy and you are satisfied with the apartment, it is better to make the decision immediately and not delay. We will respond in the next few days,” says the real estate agent.
