The real estate market of Belarus: occurs when selling from replacement, rent – for rubles | Belarus: view from Europe – DW special project | DV
Back in early 2022, real estate market experts in Belarus predicted that an increased demand for both apartments and houses in the suburbs is possible in the country. But the Russian military invasion of Ukraine has changed.
How the real estate market of Belarus was recovering
According to experts who monitor supply and demand in the Belarusian real estate market, 2017-2019 is considered the most successful period for it. The activity of apartment buyers increases sharply, which leads to the possibility of acquiring relatively inexpensive bank loans.
The most successful period for the Belarusian real estate market is 2017-2019
However, then came 2020, marked not only by the coronavirus pandemic, but also unprecedented in Belarus in terms of its outbreak in crisis. The aftermath of the presidential election and mass protests against vote-rigging in the country throughout the 2021 vote, when many opposition activists chose the country to escape government persecution.
As Alexander Samusevich, a Brest realtor, noted in an interview with DW, in this city, as well as throughout Belarus, there is an excessively pent-up demand for an apartment: people were not sure about the ability to sell or buy a home. “At the end of last year, the market revived a little: more questions began to be concluded, and banks returned to the program of lending for the purchase of housing – albeit not on the most favorable terms,” explains the realtor. As a result, the cost of a one-room apartment in Brest sometimes reached 35 thousand US dollars. And in general, housing in the Belarusian regions rose in price faster than in Minsk.
The war in Ukraine disrupted the case of the sale of apartments
In the first months of 2022, the real estate agency held optimistic expectations that interest in buying and selling homes in Belarus will recover even more. But already at the end of February the situation became absolutely opposite. “After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the buyers, despite the consideration of preliminary agreements and the parties on the deposit, refused to purchase itself,” said the founder and director of one of the ministries of real estate agencies on condition of anonymity.
In the segment of long-term rental – supply growth
At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that buyers were not even embarrassed by the fact that in case of refusal from the indicated ones they lost tasks, which can be from 500 to 1500 dollars in equivalent. Why the market reacted so precisely, DW’s interlocutor does not have a definite answer: “Most likely, a combination of factors affected: both the sharp migration of IT sector employees due to events in Ukraine, and the desire to have some kind of cash reserve in hand, without being tied to real estate “.
But as for rental housing, here experts note an increase in offers in the segment of long-term rental apartments in Minsk. Since the end of February, rents have increasingly become fixed in Belarusian rubles. In addition, there are almost no refusals to search for suburban real estate on the market: popular inexpensive plots with mothballed objects.
The exchange rate was also successful
There are no other forecasts of a possible increase in prices and supply growth. “Even those who have been considering the purchase for a long time have now put this issue on pause, and the majority prefer to simply study options and are in no hurry to conclude contracts,” Alexander Samusevich added.
Pandemic, political crisis and Russian invasion of Ukraine emerge on the real estate market in Belarus
The situation is unexpected not only a war in Ukraine, but also instability in the foreign exchange market. “Real estate sellers are very reluctant to reduce prices in dollars: it is through pegging to this currency, depending on the forecast,” said the Brest realtor. According to him, the sellers have a premonition that the Western rewards introduced against Minsk will further weaken the Belarusian ruble.
For this reason, only those who need to sell it to a high degree are willing to reduce the value of real estate. “For two or three dollars, this is a very serious amount. And if the owner of the apartment agrees to sell it at such a discount, then there is a chance that the potential buyer will appreciate it and the purchase can take place,” Samusevich clarifies.
Those who left for sending were equated with “parasites”
It will certainly affect the state of affairs in the real estate market and the desire of the republican expenses for the maintenance of the country’s housing and communal services. At the end of March, the resolution adopted a resolution, from which it follows that citizens of Belarus who left the country for more than a month are paid utility bills in full.
Previously, such a procedure was involved only in relation to those who fell into the base of the so-called “parasites”, that is, they were not officially employed. Now, the costs of maintaining housing are fully paid, Belarusians who left the country, including for mass reasons, will be obligated. Exclusion of consequences only for those who went to the rehabilitation and sanatorium treatment.
If the “parasites” were found thanks to the statistics of the Social Protection Fund, which regularly sends lists of citizens dismissed and not hired to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Belarus, then the five act differently with the new category of payers. A month later, the State Border Committee will collect its information about those who left Belarus and did not return to the country.
According to one president from Brest residents, who moved to Poland in order not to become a defendant in the supreme power in relation to participation in protests after the elections, the authorities should have thus collected money from “unreliable” citizens. “Now we can decide whether to sell the apartment quickly so as not to burden representatives with expenses, or look for other options,” said the forced Belarusian migrant.
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