Columns

Traditional Prestigious Areas Hold Their Value Today

The ratings of the most popular and most prestigious areas have not changed in years. Changes do occur, but they take place within accepted parameters as result of changes of the location of recently-built elite apartments, fluctuations of rent levels, new supply coming onto the market and the effect of various trends.

Despite instability in the economy, half of all demand is for apartments in the centre of Moscow. The next most prestigious areas are the East and South East each enjoying 15% of demand, then there is the north-west, which takes up 10% of demand.

If during the crisis, our clients’ preferences didn’t change in the popular regions, there was an increase in demand of the most centralized micro-areas of the city of 5-7%. This can be explained due to a fall in rents and clients being able to improve the conditions of their leases. It is worth pointing out that Krylatskoe is becoming very popular due to the fact that there are a lot of high-class business centres located there, as well as schools for foreign children.

Within the central region we have a rearrangement of the micro areas depending on their popularity. The first place, without a doubt today is taken by Khamovniki which absorbs almost 20% of total demand in the centre. Next we have Tverskaya area and the Arbat with 15% demand rate each, Presnya is 12%, Basmanaya and Zamockvadech each 10%.

Their popularity is explained by objective and subjective factors. The objective factors are that historically-speaking, elite real estate is in the centre of the city. Subjective factors for many clients are related to road accessibility, nearness to their offices as well as schools, good infrastructure and ecological factors.

The high popularity elite real estate in the city central areas for foreigners has a historical explanation: these particular areas are very popular amongst buyers and investors and the buildings have always been well looked after.

When considering demand for elite real estate, we should not overlook the fact that right from the beginning of the economic crisis, rents have been adjusted in practically all areas of the city. Most clients have reconciled their budgets by reducing their expenditures. Despite the fact that the popularity of the Central, East, South East and North East areas did not diminish, these areas lost more in rent than other areas. This tendency can’t be called a “collapse” or a “crisis”; it is actually more like a normalisation process. Average rents in the centre ranges from around $10,000-$15,000 per month, with rents varying from $2000-$3000, with a maximum of $50,000 per month.

As far as current trends in the real estate market go, we would like to point out the increased popularity of new buildings in the city’s central areas, such as Khamovniki, as well as elite apartments in the South East part of the city. Quite popular amongst employees of international companies, are renowned areas with spacious “family” apartments on Leninsky Prospect. Our clients consider the most interesting area to be Khamovniki; experts from our company took part in planning the infrastructure of some of the complexes in this area.

Now that a number of the Khamovniki projects have been completed, we can offer a wide range of apartments for rent: fully furnished as well as unfurnished apartments, where one can chose individual planning.