What is happening on the real estate rental market abroad and in Russia.
Owners of cottages in Sochi and Crimea are counting on increased demand this summer. For wealthy clients, property owners prepare comfortable houses and villas. The hopes are connected with the fact that the south of Russia may become the only alternative for beach holidays in Europe this year. What are the tenants' requests? And is the number of bookings growing? By Yulia Zhdanova.

Muscovite Natalia is used to spending the summer vacation with her family in a cozy house in Spain on the very coast. There she spent from one and a half to two months. She wanted to go there this summer, but her plans were ruined by a pandemic - the EU countries have not yet opened their borders even to neighboring states. As an alternative, Natalia is considering a house in Crimea for the same one and a half to two months, but finding a house similar in infrastructure and service on the Russian coast was not easy.

Why do Spaniards prefer to live in apartments rather than houses
“We are used to vacationing in Spain, this is our tradition. We usually rent a two-storey villa in the Alicante area with a small pool, a small garden. Five small rooms are very convenient, because every family member can retire. We really wanted to find something like this in Crimea, so that there would be at least a separate room for everyone, and there are four of us, the service is the same as in Spain. So that two or three times a week a girl would come and put the house in order, ”Natalya said.


Russians abandoned European villas
Landlords in Crimea admit that this year, when it became clear that foreign trips were canceled for many, they counted on a large flow of clients. But now the market has stopped, and while everyone is on standby, said the representative of the Feo-Guide company in Feodosia Pavel Korostelev: “If you look at the statistics of the year before last in comparison with the past, then the interest may be higher, but the booking is not directly very actively registered because of the whole situation in general. There are those who vacationed in Spain, now they are interested in renting in our country.

Moreover, there they paid for housing, relatively speaking, 8 thousand rubles. per day, and we want to rent the same housing for 4 thousand, citing the fact that this is Crimea.

But where, in this case, will wealthy Russians go to rest? Other Black Sea resorts, mainly Sochi, may become an alternative. Some of the cottages in the city are not inferior in terms of infrastructure to European ones, and the prices for renting houses have remained at the level of last year, says local resident Elena. She rented out the house herself last year, but now, like many landlords, has given up due to paperwork and rising taxes. According to her, many home owners are now also trying to sell their property or rent it out for a long time: “The problem is that people cannot get there. Even if there are people willing, it is not a fact that they will be able to get there - all because of the coronavirus. "

This year, cottages were rented out for almost the same money as in the past, the year before last. Houses with a swimming pool are in demand, then the price there rises, perhaps by 20%.
Elena
resident of Sochi


Muscovites are leaving the city
Now Russians who are accustomed to vacationing abroad or having real estate there are in limbo and will decide where to go only in June, predicts Georgy Kachmazov, head of the Tranio.ru overseas property project: “Someone has forecasts that border in July-August will be slightly opened, some have no such hopes. Some are considering the opportunity to go to Sochi, to Crimea in the summer, while others still believe that they will be able to get to Europe. And some people think that it is unsafe, because it is not known how the flight will be organized technically, whether the tests will be carried out. "

The interlocutors of Kommersant FM believe that wealthy Russians will probably not give up their holidays abroad until the last moment and will simply shift the dates of their trip. After all, the beach season in Spain and Italy will last at least until the end of September.

The situation with the purchase of houses and apartments in the south of Russia remains uncertain. Analysts of the portal about Russian real estate "World of Apartments" note that since the end of March, demand has been close to zero. Although there are cases of remote transactions and online real estate shows. Some of the buyers stopped searching altogether during the isolation period. According to realtors, their share is 5-10%.