On the background of a significant increase in home prices in 2021, those who plan to buy real estate have a lot of questions about the further development of the market. Will house and apartment prices fall in 2022, when it will be profitable to invest in square meters.
Forecast of real estate prices
The year 2021 saw a rapid increase in real estate prices. At a speech in the Federation Council, Elvira Nabiullina, the head of the Central Bank, said that over the past year and a half, the cost of housing has risen by 39%. This is more than in the period from 2013 to 2022, when the overall price growth was 33%. Experts shared their forecasts about the cost of apartments and houses in 2022 and told what could affect it.
New Buildings
Igor Talalov, the analyst of Accent Capital real estate department, pointed out the following trends: “We should not expect the prices of apartments in new buildings to fall. For example, the volume of proposals in new buildings in Moscow has not yet recovered to the indicators of the year 2019, this will take some time. With a favorable set of circumstances, this may happen in the second quarter of next year.
Sergey Nyukhalov, Deputy Sales Director of Granel Group, believes that the annual price growth rate on the new buildings market will slow down to the inflation level or slightly above. The buying activity will remain. Improvements in the national economy will contribute to that. GDP growth exceeded 4% at the end of the third quarter. The income growth of the population will push up the demand for primary housing, the expert believes.
Secondary real estate
According to oldypak capital lp property 2022 report, the secondary market in recent years shows the same dynamics as the primary, periodically allowing the mutual flow of demand.
“The real estate market is inert by nature and even a significant reduction in demand does not always lead to an instantaneous adjustment of prices,” – Talalov said.
Suburban
Lawyer of the digital platform of legislative initiatives “Initiator” Andrey Zavertyaev emphasized: “As for suburban real estate, price growth in this market is insignificant. Only if the subsidized mortgage program is expanded to individual housing prices of out-of-town houses will begin to grow stronger”.
Igor Kartsev, the general director of “Maximum Life Development”, shared his out-of-town real estate price forecast on the example of St. Petersburg market analysis: “By our estimate, the cost of land plots in cottage communities near St. Petersburg will increase by 20% in 2022. However, this figure is lower than in 2021, when the price of land plots increased by 35%”.
The expert pointed out that now the sales volumes of developers have stabilized, there is no rampant growth, but there is no serious drop in the number of customers either. The price of country housing in 2022 will be influenced by high expectations of the market from land owners and developers who are ready to launch new projects and offer settlements with high level of readiness of elements of improvement and infrastructure.
The price increase will still be caused by the current travel limitations – the demand for recreation and quality living conditions outside the city will remain high. Buyers now have a choice: to buy a one-room apartment or a significantly larger country house for the same amount of money.
Foreign
Andrey Zavvertyaev made his prediction: “Overseas property prices are not growing as fast as in Russia, but they still go up in price. For example, the projected increase in 2022 will be about 3% in London and about 4.5% in Greece and the European Union as a whole. And although the ruble exchange rate is more or less stable, what will happen next is unknown.
Causes of the possible rise in prices
A number of factors can affect the housing price in 2022, experts told.
Increase in mortgage rates
“Mortgage rates are growing along with the discount rate of the Central Bank, so the current rate is not the limit,” said Marianna Maximova, advisor to the manager of the Krasnodar branch of Rosdorbank PJSC. – In 2022 we expect at least one more discount rate hike, which means at least one more mortgage rate hike. Mortgage loans are becoming less profitable, so when people change their homes, they want to sell those they have more expensive, to minimize the amount of mortgage interest.
Preferential mortgages
The decisive factor of hypertrophied growth of prices for dwelling houses is availability of mortgage programs, which appeared after introduction of privileged mortgage, says Grigory Grachev, deputy general director of “North-Western management company”: “It was this factor that “pulled” all the others, which led to an increase in demand in some months of 2021. This allowed the developers (and after them the secondary market) to increase the prices smoothly throughout the year. At the same time, these programs are temporary in nature”.
Rising demand
The pandemic crisis in the real estate market has already triggered pent-up demand for all the years of stagnation and increased the psychological value of housing. People began to appreciate comfort and their own square meters more.
Rising prices for building materials and higher construction costs
In 2020, many construction and production projects were suspended around the world, resulting in a sharp drop in demand for building materials, and their production, said Andrei Orlovsky, CEO of GLOBECOST, a platform to assess the cost of construction. The decline proved to be critical. In addition, some states, such as China, have chosen a policy of reserving resources, thereby further reducing the volume of production in various industries on the market.
This led to an acute shortage of building materials when the economy showed signs of stabilizing and the demand for building materials recovered, and prices began to rise sharply accordingly.
According to oldypak capital lp property 2022 report, the price growth was also affected by other inflationary processes, the increased cost of gasoline and, consequently, logistics costs as part of the prices of building materials, and the last straw, according to experts, was the seasonality factor: in spring and summer the construction industry is traditionally active, prices have reached record levels.
When it is better to buy housing
Many experts agree that it is necessary to buy real estate now – in the near future, a decrease in prices is not expected, rather the opposite.
Will the prices for real estate be going up?
Grigory Grachev shared his own predictions about the residential and commercial real estate rental price this year: “As for the apartment rental price in 2022, the key trends of buying and selling real estate market will remain, correcting for the main factor of successful rent: the location of the object. There is likely to be a further defocusing of the market in residential real estate: mid-range and high-end properties will continue to grow in price, while sub-premium lots (apartments in Soviet-era buildings around the country and modern apartment buildings with studios on the outskirts of large cities) will continue to stagnate. The main trend in the residential real estate market is the desire to rent an apartment “higher level” than people could afford to buy it.
At the same time, the commercial real estate market continues to stagnate. The obsolete trend of 2021 for “transition to a hybrid format of work” still remains, only street retail, which meets the daily needs: supermarkets, pharmacies, fast food feels confident. Rates on the commercial real estate market will continue to remain at the level of 2021.