In 2010, 60 million square metres of housing was expected to be commissioned in Russia, 50% of which was to be low-rise housing.
According to the Federal Service for State Statistics, 58.1 million square metres of housing were commissioned in Russia as of January 1, 2011, which is 3.1% less than the projected figure and 3% less than in 2009.
Individual developers commissioned 28.3 million square metres of housing, a 0.7% decrease against 2009.
According to the statistics of Russian regional authorities, the leading regions in housing construction in 2010 were the Moscow Region (7.7 million square metres), Krasnodar Territory (3.55 million square metres), St Petersburg (2.7 million square metres), the Republic of Tatarstan (2.03. million square metres), the Republic of Bashkortostan (2.01 million square metres), the Rostov and Sverdlovsk Regions (1.8 million square metres each), Moscow (1.77 million square metres), the Nizhny Novgorod Region (1.45 million square metres), the Novosibirsk Region (1.36 million square metres), the Belgorod Region (1.1 million square metres), the Saratov Region (1.1 million square metres), the Tyumen Region (1.1 million square metres), and the Chelyabinsk Region (1.1 million square metres).
Four federal districts – namely, the Southern, Siberian, North Caucasus, and Far Eastern federal districts – increased housing construction against 2009 by 1.2%, 5.1%, 6% and 7.6%, respectively against the same level of 2009.
At the same time, four other federal districts – the Urals, Central, North-Western and Volga federal districts – saw a decrease of 10.3%, 9.3%, 3.1% and 2.9%, respectively.
In 2010, 3.13 hectares of land owned by the federal government was transferred into the civil market for housing construction, including low-rise housing.
In 2010, through programmes for the relocation of residents from dilapidated housing, the Russian regions received subsidies from the Housing and Utilities Reform Fund to finish the construction of nearly completed housing. In total, 46,500 people received new housing as a result of these efforts in 2010.
To uphold the demand for housing, measures are being taken to develop the mortgage market, to provide housing for young families, and to use maternity capital to improve living conditions.
According to the Bank of Russia, 252,100 mortgages, including 247,800 rouble-based mortgages, were taken out in Russia as of December 1, 2010, which is an increase of 135.6% against the same period last year. The weighted mean interest rate on a mortgage was 13.2% as of December 1, 2010, whereas for the same period in 2009, it reached 14.4%.
According to the Russian Pension Fund, 246,000 people used their maternity capital to settle loans taken out for the purpose of purchasing or constructing housing as of January 1, 2011. These payments totalled 78 billion roubles.
On December 17, 2010, the government adopted Resolution No. 1050, approving the "Housing" federal targeted programme for the period from 2011 until 2015. The programme is a cornerstone of the national priority project "Affordable and Comfortable Housing for Russian Citizens." The aforementioned programme entails a set of measures to make housing more affordable through the construction of new economy-class housing designed to meet energy efficiency and environmental standards.
All in all, this federal targeted programme is estimated at 620.7 billion roubles, 291.2 billion roubles of which will be set aside from the federal budget.
With the assistance of the Ministry of Regional Development, the Agency for Mortgage Lending, the Fund for the Development of Housing Construction, the Housing and Utilities Reform Fund, and Vnesheconombank, the Russian regions have drafted and approved regional programmes for developing housing construction adjusted to the federal targeted programme. These regional programmes are expected to raise the amount of housing commissioned in Russia to 90 million square metres by 2015. Moreover, the regions with the best performance in housing-related programmes will receive federal subsidies totalling 21 billion roubles within five years.