What the market should not wait for. Foggy future

Renovation of Moscow also belongs to the area of vague future and forecasts: officials talk about conversion of former industrial buildings into residential buildings, complex reconstruction, superstructuring of floors and the like. But at the same time, the share of residential space, which varies from year to year and serves as an indicator for the renovation of the housing stock for the year is 0.2% in today’s Moscow. There is no reason to believe that by 2016 it will reach at least the 0.4% mark. Also, we should mention the differentiation in the housing stock of the capital: on the one hand, it is homogeneous, but that is if we talk about buildings from the Soviet period. On the other hand, since we have not learned how to overcome the effects of segregation, this homogeneity has been increasingly diluted over the past decades by the heterogeneous New Buildings. And this is despite the fact that the given level of social housing in the capital is now such that it is extremely undesirable to go lower. Rapid turnover in groups of people (the ability to quickly move to another city if necessary) is also very small.

The gap between the increase in housing prices in the “secondary” and “primary” terms also has a big difference, if we compare Moscow with the rest of Russia. This topic is covered in the same way as five years ago the topic of traffic jams: the difference in cost is allegedly a payment for “living in the capital” just as the evening traffic jams on the roads is a payment for the capital, and the increase in problems (cost and length of jams) is inevitable.

But in 2000, the affordability of housing for residents of the capital was slightly higher than for ordinary Russians. As of today only 14% of Moscow residents can afford to buy housing without resorting to third-party loans and at market prices.