Russian nationals, especially the middle class, are snapping up more properties overseas as their country enjoys an economic boom, low unemployment and rising salaries. This has led to foreign developers seeing strong sales from Russian buyers and investors.
A study by Russian property portal 1-property.ru revealed that 72 percent of Russians do some online research first before travelling abroad to invest in real estate.
At the 3rd Russian Property Summit held last month in Moscow, there was a 15 percent rise in overseas delegates. Notably, the number of Russia-based realtors in attendance keen to represent foreign property firms soared by 335 percent.
Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Turkey and Montenegro remained the top five most searched destinations for Russians on 1-property.ru.
While half of the site visitors come from Moscow (40 percent) and St. Petersburg (10 percent), those from other regions in Russia have also increased significantly. Currently, the portal attracts more than 5,000 unique visitors daily from across the Russian Federation.
Kim Waddoup, CEO of aiGroup, owner of 1-property.ru, said: “The Russian middle class is growing extremely fast and they now have disposable income… so now they are looking for property abroad!”
“My predictions for 2013 are a constant increase with the value of individual sales increasing within the next 12 months. It will be a good year for those developers and agents that specialise in the Russian market, and can handle Russian speaking investors back in their own countries.”
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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