Despite the tense political situation in Russia and Ukraine, the reaction from ordinary Russians has been business as usual, with many arranging inspection trips within weeks to buy overseas real estate, revealed the aiGroup in Russia, organisers of overseas property shows in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Last weekend, the Moscow Overseas Property & Investment Show went ahead during the crisis in Crimea with a total of 160 exhibitors from 27 destinations taking part.
“We were concerned for our exhibitors. Not for their safety, but would there be enough visitors for them over the two days of the show,” said Kim Waddoup, CEO of aiGroup.
Much to the relief of exhibitors, the event still managed to attract more than 5,900 visitors over two days, a decrease of just seven percent from the last show in October.
At the same time, exhibitors noted that most visitors were more genuine and are actively planning to buy property abroad rather than just looking. An increase in the number of firm enquiries was reported and a healthy number of inspection visits are being planned in the coming months.
Many Russians are in fact looking to move some assets out of the country soon, which contributed to better business.
Despite this, there has been a general decline in online property searches for certain overseas destinations, both in aiGroup’s own portal www.1-property.ru and in other Russian search engines. But an increase was seen for Dubai and Montenegro.
“Incidentally, searches for property in Crimea have increased dramatically!” added Waddoup.
“It is true that the Rouble has lost value on the money markets, but this does not seem to be affecting many people especially as a great number have savings in hard currencies. Yes, Russian people are concerned with what is going on but they are not over-reacting to the media hype and life continues as normal.”
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact him about this or other stories email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
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