Real estate market monitoring, January 2013

The monitoring presents the development results of residential and commercial real estate of Moscow and the Moscow Region in January 2013.

By the results of January 2013 the supply volume in the elite primary market of Moscow increased by 9%. The main event was the start of sales in RC “Grand deluxe in Pluschikha”. The average prices of supply in the market remained practically at the level of the past month: $19, 800 per sq.m. – flats in new buildings, $14, 450 per sq.m. – apartments in new buildings, $24, 300 per sq.m. – the secondary market of elite flats. No tangible changes were observed in price-lists.

New 2013 started with a gradual growth of business activity in the office real estate market, which caused a rather high, in comparison with the past month, aggregate volume of lease transactions, which exceeded 20 thous. sq.m.

Landmark events of January in the sphere of development included the announcement about the location of 17 construction sites for transport interchange hubs (TIHs) with commercial infrastructure. Six of them will have offices, warehouses and retail-entertainment complexes with the total area of about 400 thous. sq.m. All in all, 279 TIHs with intercepting parkings are planned for construction in Moscow, where developers will be allowed to erect almost 4 mln. sq.m. of investment real estate.

An important event of the hotel market of Moscow in January against the market main players’ business activity decline was the opening of the first capsule hotel Sleepbox Moscow Tverskaya. The hotel room stock consists of 50 module rooms-capsules. The opening of the Radisson Roza Khutor hotel with a capacity of 181 rooms in Sochi should be noted in the regional market. The hotel is located in Krasnaya Polyana in Roza Khutor ski resort. This year will be landmark for the hotel market of Sochi: the majority of hotels under construction for Olympic Games 2014 will be opened.

The main players’ business activity was traditionally observed in the retail real estate market in January. Nevertheless, it was reported about the opening of two projects of retail centers. Thus, the construction of a specialized RC of household goods Home Store started near Voykovskaya metro station. Another project was announced in Bryansk: “Aero Park” retail-entertainment center in the structure of a multifunctional complex. There were no landmark transactions in the street retail segment in January, and, as a consequence, the rental rates and the level of vacant areas preserved their indices reached at the end of 2012.     

Beginning of 2013 started rather cheerfully in the countryside real estate market: the sales started in six new projects in January. As before, these were predominantly business and economy class projects with land plots without building contracts and townhouses. Two new settlements appeared in Novaya Riga, the sales started in “IstLandiya II” on 99 km of the Novorizhskoe highway and the sales of land plots in “Istritsa” cottage settlement located within 20 km of the Novorizhskoe highway. Incom company announced the start of sales in three projects: townhouses in “Domodedovo Town” RC within 17 km of the Kashirskoe highway, cottages, duplexes, land plots without building contracts in CS “Voznesenskoe”. After the New-Year discount period the prices returned to the previous level by the end of January. In some especially in-demand projects the prices for high-liquid properties were raised.