Living in rented apartments will become even cheaper for Russians
The coronavirus pandemic has broken the logic of the development of the Russian real estate market. Apartment prices are still holding up, and rental rates went down instantly. Business suffers, people are fired, they go home, abandoning their rented housing. What awaits tenants and apartment owners in the foreseeable future?
The coronavirus pandemic has broken the logic of the development of the Russian real estate market. Apartment prices are still holding up, and rental rates went down instantly. This always happens during economic shocks: business suffers, people are fired, they go home, leaving their rented housing. The current crisis, however, is much more difficult: not only growing unemployment and falling incomes of citizens, but also the closure of borders, put a pig on the owners of the apartments. Special apartments for self-isolation, collapsed rates, pain of landlords and an imaginary triumph of tenants - in the material "Lenta.ru".

Vector change
The dynamics of rates in the country as a whole does not yet reflect the entire depth of the fall in the rental market: according to a study conducted by the World of Apartments portal (available at the disposal of Lenta.ru), following the results of the first quarter of 2020 in most large cities (39 of 70) even recorded an increase in the cost of renting one-room apartments. "Two-room apartments" have risen in price in 28 cities, "three-ruble notes" - in 30.

Realtors reported a drop in demand for rental apartments in Moscow by almost 80%
Analysts explain: the turmoil in the rental housing market, which began in March, has not yet had time to affect the quarterly indicators. In January and February, rates increased due to the increased demand against the background of the rise in prices for new buildings: those who decided that they could not afford to buy a home, went to the rental market. “Homeowners felt like they were on a horse,” they say in the World of Apartments. "In the first two months and in the first week of March, this trend continued, so in many cities prices were able to rise."

By April, the average cost of renting one-room apartments in Russia was 13.4 thousand rubles per month, two-room apartments - 17.8 thousand, three-room apartments - 23.9 thousand rubles per month. For "odnushki" the rate increased for three months, but by less than a percentage. "Doubles" and "treshki" sank in price by 2 and 3 percent, respectively.

And in the second month of spring, the situation changed radically. The coronavirus has joined the collapsed oil price and the depreciated ruble. Some tenants, due to the self-isolation regime, lost their earnings, moved from large cities to their native lands, others began to demand discounts and rental vacations. Someone started looking for more comfortable and / or more affordable housing.

“From now on, everything will continue in this vein,” promises Pavel Lutsenko, head of the “World of Apartments”. - Tenants now have a lot to choose from, and landlords have begun to make concessions. They understand that now, in the days of self-isolation, it is unrealistic to find new tenants to replace the old ones. "

We expect that rates will creep down - according to the results of the first half of the year, they may already fall by 10-25 percent in most cities.
Pavel Lutsenko
head of the "World of Apartments"
In the first quarter, the cost of renting housing decreased especially strongly in Grozny - by 10-15 percent, depending on the number of rooms. The rates in Vologda, Krasnodar, Simferopol and Yaroslavl have dropped strongly - by 5-13 percent.

Moscow, I don't love you
The richest rental market in Russia - Moscow - is also not in the best condition, moreover, its scale determines the scale of the problems that have arisen. The World of Apartments has so far recorded a slight decrease in the cost of renting apartments in the capital - by 7 percent on average in the first three weeks of April. One-room lots during this period fell in price by 6 percent, two-room - by 7 percent, "three-room" - by almost 8 percent. According to experts, at present, the average cost of renting "odnushki" in Moscow is 39 thousand rubles a month (at the end of March this value was 41 thousand rubles). "Double rooms" are rented for 48 thousand (in March - 51 thousand), "three rubles" - for 55 thousand (in March - 60 thousand).

In the "fields", that is, not analysts, but realtors, have their own vision of the world.

On April 7, private practicing agent Alexander Kharybin wrote on his Facebook page that after the introduction of the self-isolation regime in Moscow, rental rates for economy-class apartments fell sharply - by tens of percent -.
“The economy is simply smeared out,” Kharybin noted. - Apartments are vacated, prices are falling by tens of percent, the owners do not realize this yet. There are no people, they were fired, they went home. The labor market is knocked down. The middle class is trying to hold on, prices have dropped by 10-20 percent, there are deals, but many times less. People work from home, little by little they are taking pictures of the best and cheapest deals. "


Expert: discounts on rental housing in Moscow reached 30% due to self-isolation
According to the realtor, the cost of renting business-class apartments due to quarantine has decreased by an average of 10 percent. “Business class feels better than the two lower siblings. The price tag has even survived somewhere. There are few people, but there is money

Yes, there are deals, ”the expert stated.

The owners of the apartments are in a better situation, who managed to find tenants before self-isolation and keep them, despite the suddenly formed wide choice of relatively cheap housing. Many landlords began to be forced to agree to discounts and deferred payments for tenants.

According to MIEL-Arenda, the reduction in the cost of renting housing during the self-isolation regime in some cases can reach 50 percent. The most modest discount is 10 percent. At the same time, landlords rarely offer a discount on their own, but they listen to the requests of tenants, especially if they have been living in an apartment for more than a year, maintain it in good faith and pay timely. “If a good business relationship has been established between the tenant and the landlord, then the parties have many ways to reach an agreement,” MIEL points out.

Live if you want
There is no one to negotiate with the owners who rented out their apartments for rent before quarantine: tourists are not allowed into the country, the number of business travelers has dropped to almost zero, Airbnb is in a coma (in fact, not quite - the service quickly reoriented itself to long-term rentals, online impressions and those who wish to rent housing to the fighters against coronavirus). Most romantic meetings were also canceled due to COVID-19, and housing for an hour or two, and even more so for a day, became completely unclaimed.

Experts: the hotel market in the Russian Federation will start to grow no earlier than the third quarter
The owners of such objects are now also ready to make concessions - they understand that tourists will not return tomorrow or even in a month, and therefore began to offer their apartments for rent for several months. As a rule, we are talking about quality properties in the city center. They are rented at discounted prices. There are dozens of such lots in prestigious districts of Moscow - in the area of ​​Tverskaya Street, Arbat, in the Presnensky District, Zamoskvorechye and others. You can rent a very decent "kopeck piece" with everything you need for 40 thousand rubles. Minus one - after the outcome of the coronavirus, the renter will, of course, be asked to leave with things or raise the rate to the previous, "pre-coronavirus" values.

In the meantime, the choice of housing for short-term rent is great: according to MIEL, in the past few years, the supply of such objects in Moscow has not exceeded a percent. Today it reaches 7 percent of the total supply of rented apartments.

The demand for temporary options is small, and even the "fugitives" - people who do not want to live with their families during the period of self-isolation, cannot save the situation. They have intensified since the end of March, that is, immediately after the introduction of restrictive measures in a number of regions.

“Those who escaped from the house supported the fallen rental market in good time,” notes the World of Apartments. “Largely thanks to them, the landlords who responded to the request in time and quickly adjusted the rates while staying afloat.”
According to the analysts of the portal, in the capital "odnushka" for the period of self-isolation can be rented at a price of 800 rubles per day (on the territory of New Moscow). In St. Petersburg, the cheapest one-room lot will also cost 800 rubles per day. Among the largest cities, the most affordable "self-isolating" apartments are offered in Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Volgograd: rates in them start at 500 rubles per day.

Guests from the south
Another interesting tendency in the rental housing market was revealed by the realtors of the INKOM agency: we are talking about an increase in the share of CIS citizens among tenants. So far, it is observed only in the Moscow region. According to agents, among today's tenants of apartments, two-thirds are visitors from neighboring countries. Another third of the tenants are citizens from Russian regions. Single requests come from Muscovites who want to rent a house during the quarantine period.


In general, against the background of the current epidemiological situation, most of the landlords did not find anything better than just hiding, that is, minimizing contacts.
“The apartment owners decided to take a break and use this time to prepare for delivery - there are many requests for advice on calculating rental rates, assessing the cost of repairing rental housing, drawing up a detailed lease agreement and inventory of the property,” say INKOM.

The agency honestly admits: after the end of the self-isolation regime, the rental market may continue to move down - massive early termination of lease agreements, the outflow of tenants and, as a result, a further decrease in rental rates are not excluded.

The expert believes that rental housing in Russia may drop in price by 20% by July
“Even when the coronavirus is over, who will rent your apartments? If the labor market is on its knees, if people are not paid salaries, or they are paid, but small, - Alexander Kharybin asks. - You say that everyone will go to Moscow, because in the regions it is even worse. But people from there will not rush to the capital, they will not be very welcome here, they will not immediately pay a large salary. And they will have nothing to pay per square meter. Therefore, prices are now falling. I do not think that in six months they will grow again. Hope it doesn't get to $ 100 s