Moscow's market for new buildings in the economy sector lost 63% of transactions in October year-on-year, shrinking to a third of normal volumes. Mortgage issuances fell by half compared to the same month. The state stopped subsidizing rates, and the effective demand, supported by the benefit, disappeared.
The buyer without the incentive program moved to the secondary market and quickly exhausted it. Secondary housing prices have increased by about 30% from year to year, but there are no deals. Thus, the number of ad views in the second half of November decreased 2-3 times, phone calls almost stopped.
The freezing mechanism is due to the fact that the subsidy kept prices in artificial demand. But when the subsidy disappeared, the payment at the market rate increased, the prices did not match, the sellers are waiting for buyers, the buyers are waiting for discounts. A separate variable is the "rise" of unsold space of several million square meters. There were no analogues to this volume even during the crises of 1998, 2008 and 2014.
Rising prices in the absence of transactions is a structural trap with two possible outcomes.
First: a long-term market freeze, where entrepreneurs service debts with no incoming cash flow, and brokers survive on zero commissions.
Second: a wave of forced sales by borrowers who cannot cope with market rates. In this case the prices will decrease through discounts on the properties being sold. The secondary market will be an indicator, as if mortgage arrears begin to turn into urgent sales, the "excess" will turn into pressure on prices that sellers will no longer be able to ignore.