The average price of apartments in the primary housing market of Kyiv may grow by 15-20% and reach $1,300 per square meter already in 2021, and by the end of 2023 it may reach $2,000 per square meter, Director General of Kovalska Group Serhiy Pylypenko has said.
“The trend continues, and this year we expect housing prices to rise no lower than last year by 15-20%. This is the minimum level of increase. The market is very active, not overheated, demand is stable. Amid rising prices for construction materials, inflationary processes, lower interest rates, affordable mortgages and other factors, we expect a rise in prices. My expectations: already this year, the average price in Kyiv may reach $1,300 per square meter, and by the end of 2023 – already $2,000 per square meter,” Pylypenko said during the discussion panel “Post-Quarantine Development” hosted by the Confederation of Builders of Ukraine in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, the growing shortage of high-quality land sites for construction in the Ukrainian capital also influences the rise in housing prices.
“The old General Plan has lost its relevance, the new one has not yet been adopted, so in the next one or two years it will not be easy to find a site which is intended for residential construction, and this will create a certain shortage of sites for future development, which will also influence the rise in prices,” he said.
In addition, the expert predicts an increase in prices for construction materials on average within 15-20% during the year. According to him, this trend forces developers to take this into account at different phases of the construction.
“All developers have experienced an increase in the cost of basic construction materials, in particular metal, which has grown by 30-40%, and other materials are also growing in price. This year, I expect that the prices for basic construction materials and construction costs may rise by 15-20%. This should to be taken into account in pricing,” he said.
According to the forecast of Pylypenko, the rise in housing prices will lead to an enlargement of the development market and displace unreliable developers.
Kovalska industrial and construction group has been operating in the construction market of Ukraine since 1956. It is a leading manufacturer of construction materials, developer and builder of the country.
The volume of housing construction in Ukraine depending on the region for the first quarter of 2021 increased by 10-20% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, General Director of the Finance and Investment Management Association (FIMA) Viktoria Volkovska has told Interfax-Ukraine.
“We have analyzed dozens of housing objects working with the Construction Financing Funds. There is an increase in activity in all regions, the most noticeable in Lviv region, where the volume of construction work increased by more than 20%,” she said.
The FIMA study is based on an online survey of managers of Construction Financing Funds conducted in the first decade of April.
According to Volkovska, despite concerns, the New Year holidays, adaptive quarantine and, finally, lockdown did not have a significant negative impact on the construction and sales of housing in the country.
According to the survey, 40% of respondents reported an increase in the volume of construction work of more than 20%, some 10% of respondents noted 20% growth, and 20% – about 10% growth. Only 10% of respondents reported a drop to 10%.
“The level of sales in general did not change, although in some regions it showed an increase of 10%,” Volkovska said.
The Finance and Investment Management Association (FIMA) was established in May 2020 in connection with the entry into force of the law on amendments to certain legislative acts to improve the functions of public administration of financial services markets. It unites 37 companies-managers of Construction Financing Funds in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro and Kharkiv.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he welcomes the signing of an intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Turkey on housing construction for Crimean Tatars, which will allow the construction of about 500 residential apartments, including for internally displaced persons.
“I welcome the signing of an intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Turkey on cooperation in the field of housing construction. This makes it possible to build about 500 apartments for representatives of the Crimean Tatar people and other internally displaced persons. This is a very important humanitarian project that will bring the peoples of Ukraine and Turkey closer together,” Zelensky said at the ceremony of signing Ukrainian-Turkish documents with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
In addition, according to Zelensky, “further liberalization of trade and economic relations between Ukraine and Turkey is important.”
“The signing of a bilateral free trade area agreement will be able to significantly increase the momentum of cooperation,” Zelensky said.
“This is a very important step that must be taken in accordance with the national interests of each of the countries, because we agreed with the President of Turkey that the relevant institutions of our countries will conduct a very substantive audit of all controversial issues and find a mutual compromise that will open the way to signing of this important document,” the president added.
The presidents also discussed the prospects for Turkish investments in Ukraine, in particular “opportunities for large-scale privatization in the field of investments in seaports, as well as cooperation in the energy and military spheres, including aircraft construction.”
“Our goal is the implementation of specific projects, the creation of joint ventures, the exchange of experience and technologies,” the President of Ukraine said.
Prices in the primary housing market in Ukraine in July-September 2020 grew by 7.7% compared to the same period in 2019, in the secondary market – by 10.6%, the State Statistics Service has reported.
According to the service, the largest increase in prices in the primary housing market in the third quarter was seen for one-room apartments (by 9.3%) and three-room apartments (8.1%), while two-room apartments had risen in price by 5.9%.
In the secondary market, prices for one-room apartments (by 11.9%) and two-room (11.2%) increased the most, while prices for three-room apartments rose by 8.5%.
At the same time, according to the State Statistics Service, in the reporting period, the growth in housing prices slowed down in the primary market and accelerated in the secondary market. In particular, in the primary market housing prices increased 1.2% compared to the second quarter of 2020: (by 2% for three-room apartments, by 1.6% for one-room apartments and by 0.5% for two-room apartments). At the same time, in the second quarter compared to the first, growth accelerated by 1.8%.
On the secondary housing market in the third quarter of 2020 compared with the second, prices rose by 2.4% (by 3.1% for two-room apartments, by 2.6% – for three-room apartments, by 1.1% – for one-room apartments) , while compared with the first quarter they grew by 1.5%.
The figures are given without taking into account the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as part of the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Housing commissioning in Ukraine in January-March 2019 increased 32.3% compared with the same period in 2018, to 2.453 million square meters. According to the report, 1.394 million square meters of housing were commissioned in cities in the first quarter (56.8% of the total volume), while 1.06 million square meters in rural areas. At the same time, 61.7% of the total housing was commissioned in single-family houses, 38.3% in houses with two or more apartments.
In general, during the reporting period some 26,098 apartments were commissioned, including 16,900 apartments in cities and 9,200 apartments in villages.
The average area of apartments was 94 square meters, while the average area of apartments in single-family houses was 154.1 square meters, in houses with several apartments – some 57.8 square meters.
Some 51.7% of the total volume of housing was commissioned in Kyiv city and region, as well as in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions, in particular, 174,300 square meters (7.1%) in Kyiv.
The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on Tuesday amended the regulations of the State Fund of Ukraine for the Promotion of Youth Housing Construction, in particular, boosting its charter capital by UAH 30 million, to UAH 331.3 million, and authorizing the Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utilities Economy Ministry to manage the fund.
According to a draft resolution, the increase of the fund’s charter capital by UAH 30 million would allow 40 families to buy apartments.
The change of the fund’s regulations, in particular, authorizing the regional development ministry to manage it, is required to bring the regulations in line with the government’s decision made in 2011, according to an explanatory note to the document.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers had previously made changes to the procedure for providing government support and providing affordable housing, in particular, allowed applicants to independently choose housing within the established prices and area (depending on the number of family members).
