New concept of Minsk City presented

Minsk-City, a tremendious office area which Belarusian government would like to see as an international financial centre has a long strory of planning, redesign and conflicts with investors. Initially it was supposed to be built in 2009 but world financial crisis made Itera, a Russian investor, to abandon the project. Now it looks Belarus itself will develop this area.

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Apartments for sale in Minsk - October 2013

Review of the residential property market in Minsk in October 2013

   In September, the  long-term growth  of residential real estate in Minsk for the first time significantly slowed down . In mid-October we could see that was a turning point and since then we have observed only decline in prices. Reaction of buyers and sellers on trends and changes one can find in this October review of  Realt.by.

   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.

The number of transactions recorded in September  - finalized

* yellow - offers, red - sales completed

   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.

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

Realt.by

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Prices go crazy

Minsk apartments for rent

The rental market has undergone significant changes over the past six months. Thousands of ordinary people faced with the challenge of finding housing. Meager selection and exorbitant prices for apartments of bad quality - so experts describe the situation. July has always been a kind of calm before the storm, before arrival of non-resident students. Not now.

The number of rental apartments for offer has consistently decreased since March. In past years in the middle of summer market was full of apartments freed by students, which immediately increased the total supply by 10-15%. In July 2013, the increase was only 3.0%. Inside the structure, at the same time there have been significant changes. The segment of the most popular one-room apartments continued to narrow, but supply of the 2 - and 3 - bedroom apartments has increased by 12.4% and 5.9%  respectively. For the first time in a long time, the offers of 1-bedroom apartments lost the lead to 2-bedroom ones.

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Prices are still on a rise

Residential property in Minsk - May 2013

For recent years May on Minsk real estate market was the average standard month. Most buyers are not in a hurry and at the same time activity does not fall sharply, as it happens in the summer months. The current May was no exception to this rule. Nevertheless, there were a few quite interesting events. Facts and figures of the last month of spring in review of Realt.by.


The increased demand for apartments in Minsk, which we are seeing the beginning of the year, continued in May. Although the total number of transactions compared to April decreased by almost 20%, the current mark is still a very high figure. Number of apartments bought in Minsk this year is more than ever before.

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Hoping for the better, expecting the worst

Belarus property market

Expectations of a new crisis make Belarusians to invest in property

The property market is an indicator of the economy in any country in the past year was unusually generous for Belarus for positive trends. This primarily concerns the growth of demand in the residential sector, which resulted in increase in the number of transactions. Paradox: the poorer Belarusians became, the more real estate they buy! But if you remember that a similar burst of activity was observed in 2008, it becomes apparent the real reason behind that: the intensive investment in the real estate by people was because of the threat of another financial turmoil.

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Visitors of Minsk prefer economy-class rooms

Minsk hotels

The number of hotels in Minsk will have increased to 62 by 2016.

On November 1th, there were 29 hotels in Minsk. Two of these hotels ("Oktyabrskaya " and "Belarus") are being reconstructed now. This information has been given during a press conference by the Deputy Chairman of the Minsk City Executive Committee Vladimir Koltovich.

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Time to build and sell

After fall of the real estate market in 2011 outlook is getting better and there is potential for developers to improve volume of sales, and for price increase.

This year Minsk real estate market has seen departure of several big investors. The result was that some of the projects such as Minsk City was canceled. Not enough own money and lack of bank credits were main reasons to stop building activities.

But there is another group of developers - those who remain on the market. They continue to build and sell. After a significant (around 25%) reduction of number of buildings sold last year, now this segment demonstrates stability. In September 2012, the primary real estate market included more than 70 projects.

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