Almost 70% of apartment owners on Ostozhenka do not live in them themselves, do not rent and do not want to sell at current market prices
The area located between Ostozhenka and Prechistenskaya embankment began to be built up in the late 90s of the last century. For almost 20 years, the market for this location, called the Golden Mile, has been in an active state. However, the situation has changed recently. The area has not become less prestigious. It's just that there are not many sites for building new projects left, and developers have switched to other areas. And the secondary market of Ostozhenka was crippled by the crisis and the ambitions of homeowners.
The owners did not want to adapt to changes in the market and sell their apartments for less than they bought. As a rule, owners of real estate in the Golden Mile area are not the only housing, and they themselves prefer to live in other places. But they do not want to hand over either. Recently, the Kalinka Group announced that 68% of the apartments on Ostozhenka are empty. The Elitnoe.RU portal asked representatives of large elite real estate agencies to express their point of view on the current situation. Experts were divided. Some of them agreed with the Kalinka Group data; others believe that the indicators are exaggerated; and still others claim that the residents of the district are simply hiding from the eyes of strangers, and the silence of Ostozhenka is just a deceptive visibility.
Irina Kalinina, Managing Partner of Point Estate:
– On the Golden Mile, at least 68% of elite apartments are really empty, and possibly more. The problem is that a significant part of the purchases in this location were made for investment purposes. People invested money in the hope of then realizing their property at a much higher price. Their expectations were met until 2014: prices for luxury real estate grew at an impressive pace.
If you walk along the side streets of Ostozhenka in the evening, you can see mostly dark windows in the houses
However, today the cost per square meter on the “Golden Mile” has dropped significantly and does not at all meet the expectations of the owners. Apartments for sale at $ 25,000 per sq. meter, nobody buys. As the experience of the last year shows, real transactions are concluded with a discount of up to 45%, which is given only by owners who are very motivated to sell. All other apartments are waiting for buyers without any hope of success and are empty. And this can be seen with the naked eye: if you walk along the streets of Ostozhenka in the evening, you can see mostly dark windows in the houses.
If we talk about the prospects of this location, it is pointless to wait for prices to rise – to the level of 2010 they will never return. Simply because over the past three years, a huge number of new elite projects have appeared on the market, more modern, high-quality and at the same time with lower prices (in the photo – new complexes of the “Golden Mile”).