The housing market in Russia is rapidly changing both under the pressure of radical changes in the housing and construction industry itself, and in the economy in general. Here, significant events unfold that will inevitably have far-reaching consequences. At least, for those who sooner or later will think about buying their own homes. In the country there is a tendency of a drastic reduction in the number of direct sales of housing and an increase in the number of mortgage deals, according to Vesti. Real estate "with reference to representatives of real estate business. In Moscow alone, the share of purchases of real estate with the involvement of mortgages varies, depending on the object, from 25% to 90%. The predominance of direct purchases for "live" money is observed today only in the premium segment. This is not surprising, since most of its participants are people who buy housing by no means for the last money. In the remaining segments, mortgages occur on all fronts.

According to realtors, last year was a record number of mortgage deals. According to AHML in 2017 in Russia, it was issued about 1 million mortgage loans, amounting to about 1.9 - 2 trillion rubles. with the total volume of mortgage portfolio across the country in 5.2 - 5.4 trillion. The starting point of the mortgage boom was the rate cut by the Bank of Russia from double-digit to unambiguous values, which stimulated commercial banks to liberalize the terms of mortgage lending. According to analysts' forecasts, the Central Bank will continue to lower the rate and further that will give the development of the mortgage a new impetus. It would seem that what is happening is worth rejoicing, since mortgage programs can help to acquire own housing for those who are not able to buy it directly under any conditions. However, there is reason to believe that the enthusiasm for such a marvelous turn of events is premature. What characterizes the situation in the residential real estate market today? First of all, this noticeable decline in demand, caused by the decline in income of a large part of the population, due to low economic growth. The consequence of the decrease in the income of potential home buyers was a tangible overstocking of developers who for several months, or even years, can not realize their own square meters. The situation is aggravated by the fact that during the recent housing boom construction began almost under every bush where it was only possible to obtain a permit. As a result, the height of the crisis arose a huge number of areas of new buildings erected in places that are not suitable for comfortable living. First of all, this is an economy class housing in panel and sometimes monolithic houses of popular series. Sales of such facilities today almost stopped. The sword of Damocles, hanging over the developers, was the expectation of the cancellation of share construction, in which the developer de facto erected housing for the money co-investors-co-investors. In a new paradigm, construction companies lose access to almost free money. And this means that the money for construction will have to be sought from other sources, such as banks and attracted investors. Not in the best condition are the case and the potential buyers of residential real estate. A significant decline in income in recent years has led to the fact that the opportunity to buy an apartment directly for cash is available only a few lucky ones. On the other hand, many of those who still have the opportunity to acquire housing for real money, asks: why should I pay my blood for an apartment in a clean field without any infrastructure. And in this difficult situation, the mortgage has become the golden key, which, in the opinion of developers and buyers of housing, will open the door to a "bright future" for both. At first glance, everything is really perfect:.

banks receive cheap money from the Central Bank, offer them on good terms to mortgage borrowers, secured by the purchase of square meters. The latter, once again acquiring the solvency, with round sums run to the waiting for their developers. It would seem that here it is - an ideal scheme that allows feeding wolves and preserving sheep. However, in reality everything is not so simple. The scheme also has a weak point, which are just the same lucky mortgage recipients themselves. As already mentioned above, one of the main reasons for the reduction in the number of direct purchases of real estate was the decline in real incomes of Russians. Judging by the existing economic forecasts, in the foreseeable future there are no grounds for a noticeable increase in household incomes. Sanctions, military expenditures of the state, uncertainty with oil prices - all this will continue to put pressure on the domestic economy and, as a consequence, on the incomes of citizens.

Consequently, in the medium term, one can expect not so much growth as a reduction in the income of home buyers. When registering the same mortgage, the current and past incomes of borrowers are taken into account, the levels of which are not reached by everyone in the near future.

This is an objective circumstance, which is practically impossible to change. What can all this mean in practice? And just that thousands of borrowers will be held hostage to the overall economic situation. Any reduction in their incomes, the probability of which is close to 100%, will entail problems with servicing mortgage loans.

If the problems prove to be unsolvable, then this will be followed by the seizure of the mortgaged apartments in court, their implementation and the transfer of the proceeds to the creditor. Since the real estate market is overstocked with housing for several years ahead, the amount of sale of mortgaged apartments will be relatively low. And this means that an unlucky borrower is more likely to remain, not only without housing, but also without a penny in his pocket. As for developers, for many of them, the mortgage boom will, rather, benefit. In the conditions of the termination of the shared construction mortgage will become the main supplier of buyers paying immediately the full cost of the acquired housing. Do not remain in the losers and banks, whose loans are also well protected by a pledge and judicial system, which has a rich experience of "returning" funds from insolvent debtors.