Expert: Luckily, the crisis in Russian stock market occurred now
“It is impossible to say now whether housing prices have grown or fallen: they increased a little bit if we count in rubles, and they did not if we count in dollars,” Sergey Babashev, the senior analyst of the Bulletin of Real Estate group of companies declared today, on September 23, at a press conference in Saint Petersburg. Babashev noted that ‘during last half a year the real estate market showed a non-negative dynamics’, informs a REGNUM correspondent.
‘It is good, that a crisis in the Russian stock market happened now, when mortgage transactions on the housing purchase totaled not more than 20% from the total amount of deals and when the construction market is in the stage of development,” said the expert. “Consequences could be worse, if the level of mortgage transactions reached 90%, and the construction market would be either overflowed or overnarrowed’.
According to the expert, ‘the Russian market is strong enough, to manage the crisis’. Meantime, he stressed that ‘fluctuations in the stock market do not have direct impact upon the real estate market.’ ‘There is indirect influence by mortgage market: the slowdown of mortgage development has impact upon the real estate market and the price of housing,” explained Babashev. “But, I don’t think many of Saint Petersburg residents feel on themselves the crisis.’
According to the expert, ‘the residential real estate market will remain in the same weak state till the New Year or next spring, as it was this summer. ’As for a long-term forecast, the share of mortgage transactions on purchase of housing will grow,” added Babashev. “In addition, in due course of time it becomes more and more difficult to buy housing without a mortgage, and even wealthy citizens understand, that it pays”.
16:57 09/23/2008
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