REAL ESTATE WEEK • No. 2 • SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
Russia’s housing market is beginning to behave as if there is no longer a single market at all.
Transaction volumes are rising in the resale segment. In Moscow’s mass-market new-build segment, sales have fallen to a nine-year low. Developers are reducing supply, yet prices continue to rise. And from October 1, the terms of the family mortgage program — a mechanism that has largely shaped primary-market demand in recent years — are changing.
Look at each number separately and it is just another set of statistics.
Put them together, and the picture becomes much more interesting.
The primary and resale housing markets are beginning to diverge.
And expensive mortgages are not the only reason.
The economics of buying a home itself is changing.
The week’s biggest event did not happen on a construction site.
It happened in the mortgage calculator.
From October 1, 2026, the family mortgage program becomes differentiated: the interest rate and maximum loan amount will depend on the number of children and the region.
In most Russian regions, a family with one child under seven will be able to borrow at 10%; with two children, at 8%; with three, at 6%; with four, at 4%; and with five or more, at 2%.
Loan limits are changing as well, while the maximum subsidized term will be capped at 15 years.
Separate parameters apply to Moscow, the Moscow Region, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.
This is much more significant than a routine adjustment to a mortgage program.
In recent years, the family mortgage program effectively created a large class of buyers receiving the same preferential rate.
That class is now splitting into several groups.
For one family, an apartment becomes more affordable.
For another, noticeably more expensive.
Even though the apartment may be exactly the same.
Consider a RUB 6 million loan for 15 years.
At 6%, the monthly payment is approximately RUB 50,600.
At 8%, it is about RUB 57,300.
At 10%, roughly RUB 64,500.
The difference between 6% and 10% is almost RUB 14,000 a month.
Or about RUB 167,000 a year.
Over several years, that is enough to change a decision about apartment size, location, down payment — or whether to buy at all.
So the changes to family mortgages affect more than the cost of credit.
They change the boundaries of solvent demand for new-build housing.
For the market, this means one important thing.
The price per square meter tells us less and less about true housing affordability unless we also answer the question: who is buying that square meter, and on what terms?
Two families may be looking at the same RUB 15 million apartment.
Economically, however, they are looking at two different apartments.
The new rules arrive at a time when the primary market is already under considerable pressure.
This is particularly visible in Moscow’s mass-market segment.
Only about 900 equity participation agreements were registered there in August.
Sales fell 27% month on month.
And by 59% year on year.
Moscow’s mass-market new-build segment has not seen fewer than one thousand transactions since 2017.
One might expect the market to respond by cutting prices.
Instead, the average price per square meter reached approximately RUB 426,600.
That is 17% higher than a year earlier.
The arithmetic looks almost wrong:
Yet these three numbers describe today’s Moscow new-build market remarkably well.
There are far fewer buyers.
There are fewer apartments for sale too.
And prices are still rising.
In an ordinary market, the logic seems straightforward: fewer buyers should force the seller to cut the price.
Real estate is more complicated.
Not a single new project launched in Moscow’s mass-market segment in August. Only two new buildings were released for sale within projects already on the market.
Available supply fell to 9,300 units — down 31% in a year.
In other words, the market is responding to weaker demand with more than price.
It is responding with volume.
And that is one of the defining features of the current real estate cycle.
A correction is already taking place. It is happening primarily through the number of transactions and the amount of new supply, rather than through the price per square meter.
The buyer waits for a discount.
The developer responds with fewer apartments.
Each side, in its own way, believes it has demonstrated patience.
While Moscow new builds are losing buyers, Russia’s resale housing market is moving in a different direction.
In August, 139,200 purchase and sale agreements for existing homes were registered.
That is 21% more than a year earlier.
From January through August, transaction volumes were also up 21% year on year and approximately 10% above the result for the same period in 2024.
Mortgages are even more interesting.
Around 30% of August transactions involved a mortgage.
The number of mortgage-backed transactions increased by 41% year on year.
Meanwhile, the average asking price per square meter nationwide rose by only around 2% over the year.
Buyer activity, in other words, is recovering much faster than average prices are rising.
And this is where the primary and resale markets begin to look almost like mirror images.
New builds: fewer transactions, less supply, higher prices.
Resale: more transactions, more mortgages, and much calmer average price dynamics.
This is no longer statistical noise.
These are different market models.
That is how much the number of mortgage-backed resale transactions increased over the year.
The figure matters more than it may seem.
In recent years, the main competitive advantage of a new build was often not the new build itself.
It was the mortgage.
A buyer could find a cheaper existing apartment, but a subsidized rate could make the monthly payment on a new home more attractive.
That created an unusual gap between the price of real estate and the cost of buying it.
Now the situation is beginning to change.
Market-rate mortgages are still expensive. It is far too early to talk about the return of cheap credit.
But some buyers are once again completing transactions for existing homes.
And resale housing has some very simple advantages.
The building already exists.
The keys exist.
You can see the courtyard.
You can walk to the metro and test the promised “12 minutes.”
The neighbors exist too — sometimes an advantage, sometimes simply additional information for the decision.
Most importantly, the buyer is sitting opposite an owner with whom the actual transaction price can be negotiated.
When money is expensive, the ability to negotiate becomes an economic factor again.
The classic choice used to look like this:
new build or resale.
That is no longer enough.
The buyer is effectively choosing between several financial systems.
Physically, all of these are the same product — housing.
Financially, they are entirely different products.
That is why the average price per square meter is gradually becoming a less sufficient measure of market conditions.
Today, the cost of money can matter more than the cost of the apartment itself.
This is where the week’s most important change lies.
The primary real estate market is becoming increasingly dependent on the architecture of government support.
If a buyer qualifies for a program, the economics of the transaction look one way.
If not, they look another.
After the family mortgage changes, differences will appear even within the program itself.
The resale market works differently.
There, the decisive factors are the market mortgage rate, the down payment, the price of a specific property and the seller’s willingness to negotiate.
So the two markets are beginning to respond differently to the same cost of money.
New builds absorb pressure through supply.
Resale absorbs it through the price of the individual transaction.
A developer has project financing, a construction schedule and the economics of an entire residential complex.
An apartment owner sometimes has only one argument.
They need to sell.
And that can be a very persuasive argument.
There is another number that turns today’s situation into a question extending beyond 2026.
According to the Construction Ministry’s estimate, housing completions in Russia may total around 87.75 million sq m this year.
That is 18.8% less than in 2025.
Apartment buildings may account for around 39.7 million sq m, with individual housing contributing approximately 48.1 million sq m.
A decline in completions does not, by itself, mean a future shortage.
But combined with cautious new launches, it creates an important risk.
Real estate has a very long production lag.
Demand can change within a few months.
Mortgage rates can change after a series of regulatory decisions.
But a new residential complex cannot be brought to market retroactively.
So the question is no longer only how many apartments are being bought today.
The more interesting question is:
how many apartments will be available when money becomes cheaper again?
Buyers are waiting for prices to fall.
Developers are waiting for cheaper financing.
Banks are waiting for the cost of money to change.
Resale sellers are waiting for buyers.
Meanwhile, the government is defining more precisely who should receive mortgage support, and on what terms.
Everyone is waiting.
But the market is not standing still.
While a buyer postpones a decision, a developer may postpone a new project.
While a developer reduces supply, existing apartments do not necessarily become cheaper.
While new builds remain expensive, some buyers return to the resale market.
And when demand truly recovers, the structure of supply may already look very different.
In real estate, waiting is also an action.
Its consequences simply tend to appear later.
This may be the most important change of all.
Preferential mortgages are gradually ceasing to be a universal way to make new builds more affordable.
They are becoming a more targeted instrument.
The more children a family has, the stronger the support.
From a social-policy perspective, the logic is clear.
For the real estate market, the consequences are more complicated.
It is no longer enough for a developer to understand the buyer’s average income.
They need to understand the composition of the family.
Whether it qualifies for the program.
What loan limit is available.
What monthly payment that produces.
What down payment will be required.
And what apartment the family can afford after all those calculations.
A few years ago, the sales department’s main question was:
“What is your budget?”
The questionnaire is gradually becoming more interesting.
The question “when will apartments get cheaper?” has not disappeared.
But the question itself has become too broad.
Which apartments?
Moscow new builds?
Resale housing in a regional city?
A completed apartment sold by an investor?
A comfort-class development?
A family apartment that can be financed at 4%?
The same market can simultaneously show rising average asking prices and larger discounts in actual transactions.
Because the advertised price and the price at which an apartment actually changes hands are not always the same thing.
And the price of an apartment and the cost of financing it are even less alike.
That is why, in 2026, it is more useful to watch four indicators rather than a single average price:
Only together do they begin to explain the market.
In the previous issue of Russian Estate, we concluded that Russia’s real estate market was learning to live without cheap money.
This week, something else became clear.
Everyone is learning differently.
The government is changing the family mortgage program and making support more targeted.
New builds are losing transactions but defending prices by reducing supply.
The resale market is regaining buyers and mortgages.
Developers are becoming more cautious about new construction.
And buyers are increasingly choosing more than just an apartment.
They are choosing a rate, a monthly payment, a down payment, a waiting period, the ability to negotiate — and only then the square meters.
So the main question for Russia’s real estate market in autumn 2026 is no longer:
“Will apartment prices fall?”
A better question is:
“For whom, exactly, will buying a home become cheaper?”
Because there is no longer one answer for the entire market.
And perhaps that is the defining change of the current cycle.
Russia’s real estate market is not falling or rising in one direction.
It is diverging.
Russian Estate | Real Estate Week
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