Apartments are getting more expensive, contrary to logic. Can housing prices in Russia fall at all?
The State Duma and the Central Bank criticized the high real estate prices. Vyacheslav Volodin was outraged by the 50% increase in the cost per square meter, and Elvira Neviolina said that Russians do not need affordable mortgages, but affordable housing. True, the figure cited by the State Duma probably refers not to market prices, but to the housing cost estimate approved by the Ministry of Construction for government programs. And growth of more than 50% per year was recorded in only two regions - the Jewish Autonomous Region and Kabardino-Balkaria.
As for the market, according to Rostat, in the third quarter of 2026 square meters in new buildings increased by almost 9% compared to the year, in the secondary market - by 15.6%. Analysts explain this, among other things, in the consequences of preferential mortgages: first it raised the prices of new buildings, and after the collapse of mass programs, the secondary market began to catch up with them. In Moscow, for example, a two-room apartment in a building to be renovated, which cost 14 million rubles in March 2025, found a buyer a year and a half later, according to the seller, for 21 million.
But not all apartments are actually sold at the prices listed in the advertisements. Some owners have been unable to find buyers for years, but continue to raise prices and refuse to bargain. Entrepreneurs have their own story: the advertising prices hide discounts, payments and subsidized conditions, which are ultimately also included in the housing price.
So can apartments in Russia be cheaper? Almost every year there are experts who say that prices are going to drop. And every time there are preconditions for that. According to the head of the analytical center "Real Estate Market Indicators" Oleg Rapchenko, they still exist. High interest rates and unaffordable mortgages should cool the market, but sellers are psychologically unwilling to give up, and buyers are unwilling to pay too much.