Review of the residential property market in Minsk in October 2013
Against the background of the incipient decline of supply of apartments, the most important and most expected rate in October was the number of contracts closed. The data show us that in October exodus of buyers from the market did not happen. Compared to September, the number of transactions is even slightly increased.
At the same time, the volume of supply continued to rise by accelerated pace. Number of apartments for sale on market in October was 14.7% more than inlast month. And rate of growth of supply compared to September remained absolutely unchanged.
The current ratio of these two main indicator shows that the market is fully recovered from the excessive demand and shortage of supply of apartments which we had been observing during recent month.
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| The number of transactions recorded in September - finalized |
Compared to September, we recorded the following changes in consumer preferences:
First, buyers began paying more attention to the 2- room apartments - their share in the total has risen. Number of 1-room and 3 room apartments bought in October is less than ususal.
Secondly, people are actively buying within the First transport ring area. High price does not scare buyers - the number of completed deals in the heart of the city has grown by half.
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| Structure of apartments sold |
During last two months numbers regarding real deals look pretty significant. Buyers, focusing on the growth of the supply of apartments in September and August, traded reluctantly. As a result, if the October average bid price remained virtually unchanged (+0.2%), the prices of actual transactions has gained 1.3% due to inertia. In the future , against the background of rapid growth in supply, increased competition for customers and a clear reduction of the people we hardly can expect a convergence of the two curves.
On the primary market, developers have continued to raise prices in October (+1.5%) despite a clear signal of reversal on the secondary market. It is important to say that at the moment number of apartmemts in new buildings share which are completed, but not sold out, is a third more than the year before.
It should be noted that the growth recorded by real deals is mainly due to the already mentioned activity in the city center (number of luxury apartments sold in October is more than in September) as well as in the segment of 2- room apartments. Average price sold od 2-room flats in October was higher than September's values about 4.0% , despite the fact that for the remaining segments price growth has not exceeded 1 percent.
The main feature of the dynamics of proposals for different segments on the secondary market is the growth of property prices in the old houses. The maximum growth rates was recorded for buidings of Stalin era (+2.4 %), as well as apartments in panel Khrushchev and Brezhnev era houses (+1.6 %). In this modern cast-frame and brick home has decreased in value by 0.3 %, the same thing happened to the more affordable apartments in a modern prefabricated homes (-0.9 %).
The color scheme of the price card has undergone a significant change over the last month. Most buyers in the center continues to hold there a positive price dynamics, while in many sleeping neighborhoods prices began to fall. Among them is the former city-wide leaders in the growth in the summer months: Kamennaya Gorka, Shabany and Malinovka.
Three quarters of 2013 Minsk was the only "bright spot " on the map of Eastern Europe. None of the nearby capital city prices were not rising at the same pace. In autumn the situation began to change gradually: in the Belarusian capital prices have stopped and even started to decline, while almost all the neighbors experience, albeit a slow but growing rise in prices. However, the price of an apartment in Minsk still continues to be close to the maximum historical figure.
Artyom Sakharevich
