Abandoned cottage villages in the Moscow region have long ceased to be a rarity, as well as the villages of townhouses and low-rise residential complexes. The proportion of abandoned settlements of all types at the suburban country market has reached 35%. With such a disappointing statement made some time ago by analysts of the Agency “Inkom-real Estate”. What are the so-called “towns Ghost” where they came from, and if they have the chance to gain a second life?
The types of “ghosts”
According to General Director VescoGroup Alexei Averyanov, abandoned towns of the Moscow region represent a wide range of country projects, which differ from each other the causes of the suspension of development, stage of readiness and future prospects.
First, are projects where the developers were defrauded real estate investors the ultimate purchasers of the houses, he said. As a rule, already built homes in projects of business class for permanent residence. Such towns held courts and procedure insolvency. Often these “assets” go to the Bank as collateral. Prospects of further development have virtually no, because a too large number of tied to the project participants and procedures. It’s the banks, the collateral debt obligations to third parties, bankruptcy Trustees, rights buyers, investors, etc. to give new life to such a project, you want to bankrupt the Builder, to re-evaluate the asset, put it up for auction. Only then there can be a new developer that will come to his new environment. But it’s a long and difficult way, and the likelihood that it will ever pass, not great. In addition, fell and purchasing power, and hence the market potential for these projects anymore.
Secondly, it is necessary to tell about the settlements with areas without a contract. That is the economy segment, where for whatever reasons the developer has not complied, or for a long time not fulfilled obligations relating to communications. The courts, as such, no, but the liquidity of the land has fallen, which does not attract new customers, and existing owners can’t live without networks. Such settlements in the Moscow region a lot. They have no official status of “frozen” projects, but they have no development over the years. Their resuscitation is possible, but a complete reconception and only under a strong brand is known as a reliable Builder, whose reputation in the market is “worth” more than the amount of negative reviews about the village.
Third, it has to say about towns where the developers have not fulfilled their obligations to build infrastructure (as a rule, high-class projects), but do not go on path of bankruptcy, and made the conception in the direction of reducing the class. Projects where first sold expensive homes, and then 2007-2008 brought to sale plots without a contract, too much. The initial buyers are often not ready to live in a new format and towns are idle they are not dead, but not populated even at the half. Prospects for such settlements Averyanov sees.
Fourth, the same fate befell the projects of luxury segment, where the developer has fulfilled the obligation, but the purchasing power of their inhabitants declined due to the financial crisis. In the end, to contain, and often even decorate the house bought, they can not. And to sell the “box” today is difficult, because the demand for morally and physically obsolete homes in the high segment is negligible.
In addition, in the luxury segment there are projects that are built and even sold out, but the people in them do not live because of the changed consumer preferences, adds the managing Director of “Metrium Premium” and a member of the affiliate network of CBRE Ilya Mogunov. There are lots of examples along the Dmitrovskoe highway, namely on the first line of the Klyazminsky reservoir. “One time was very fashionable and prestigious to have a house by the water, so many fundamentally were looking for a land or a ready house on the shoreline. But over time, the fashion for housing near the water is gone, especially when it became clear that the Russian climate is not conducive to life on the river or lake, and the cost of maintaining a yacht is not comparable to the pleasure of two or three weeks of its use during the year. As a result, owners of such houses put them up for sale or even moved to other towns,” says the expert.
The vicissitudes of demand
Experts attribute the massive ruins of country towns with lower demand in the segment of home residence. According to Alexey Averyanov, this happened because of two reasons. First, lately there has been a significant development of urban format outside Moscow. Multi-storey houses started to come in traditionally “suburban” territory. As a result, the prestige and the benefits of “life on earth” were significantly reduced, which is not surprising when the cottages started to grow a 12-story “the ant”. Secondly, people began to realize that I could afford to live outside the city constantly, not everyone can. After all, buying land and building a house is only part of the way. Real estate you also need to serve the plot to landscape, to take children to kindergarten or school, etc. resulted In a need for assistant, as well as second or third car.
In addition, the decline of demand due to insufficient quality of projects. Especially sharply this question has risen from the beginning of the economic crisis in 2014, when the money are fewer buyers and their requirements to the characteristics of villages, quite logically, increased.
To the village was successful, is not enough to build houses of good materials, says the head of Department of sales of the company Optiland Alex Odnoral. Buyers want to be within walking distance of a working infrastructure. In turn, the construction of social infrastructure is a big financial burden for developers, which is hard to cope of the company, especially the sales in times of crisis fell significantly.
In turn, Ilya Mogunov tells about irrelevant concept homes. In addition to the lack of infrastructure is still boring, unremarkable architecture, too large land plots, commensurate with the area of the house, bad planning decisions, inadequate price tags. All this is typical of projects that were designed before the events of 2014-2015, when the market grew and the customers were not so demanding. Sadly, the developers of such facilities not able to react to the changed demand and were “overboard”.
The results of all these processes for developers were deplorable: abandoned cottage settlement has become a common attribute of suburban country living.
Credits are spurring the demand
Despite the bleakness of the current situation, experts see some positive signs give hope to some increase in demand, and hence to reduce the abandoned projects in the next few years. According to Alexei Odnoral, accessibility in the suburbs is constantly improving and mortgages are becoming more affordable, including to rural property.
“The demand in the mass segment could return to active development of mortgage lending on house construction at affordable rates, to 10% per annum”, said Alexei Averyanov.
According to the information-analytical project Cottage.ru mortgage lending in the country market of real estate is developing rapidly. Many developers working on the suburban market, together with banks, have developed special mortgage programs for ongoing cottages and other objects of suburban real estate.
The results of the efforts of developers and banks already have. In the segment of low-rise suburban housing, which refers to apartments sold by the developers for contracts equity (DDU), the average share of transactions involving mortgage loans amounted to 36-37% by the end of 2017, while in 2016 this figure does not exceed 28%, say analysts “MIEL-Country real estate”.
What’s next?
Owing to the crisis the overall economic situation and also some of the nuances of the industry, suburban country market is experiencing difficult times. First negative phenomena have affected the market of cottages. It is sad, but an abandoned cottage villages near Moscow are increasingly inspire sadness in real estate, and just a passing motorist and their satellites. With townhouses, the situation is somewhat better, although here the problem is not bypass the developers side. The premise for any radical changes do not exist. So “towns Ghost” will be given more than one year. And yet, the development of mortgage lending in the country market gives hope for some improvements.
