Home full house: Russians began to actively buy up suburban real estate
The Russian market for individual housing construction has entered a new phase: in the first half of 2026, demand for country houses increased by 45% compared to last year. At the same time, buyers are increasingly faced with a shortage of high-quality facilities that meet their expectations in terms of price and level of performance. Due to the high cost of construction, they began to save on everything: fences, interior decoration, landscaping. Why Russians choose suburban housing and whether the supply will be able to catch up with the growing demand is in the Izvestia article.
How the country market is recovering
This year, the demand for private homes in Russia has increased by almost one and a half times compared to the same period last year, market participants told Izvestia. The rural segment is overtaking the urban segment in terms of activity dynamics, the Arborestate agency noted.
At the same time, the price gap between sites in different districts continued to widen. In June, the average cost of a hundred square meters in the nearest Moscow region was 1.05 million rubles, while at a distance of 100 km or more from Moscow it was only 77.6 thousand rubles, that is, 13.5 times less, experts said.
The volume of supply increased by 17% over the year, said Anton Saukov, head of the center for suburban real estate at the federal company Floors.
— Average price per sq.m. m in country houses is still significantly lower than in urban apartments, which partly explains the interest of buyers. In addition, the market has gradually adapted to the changes. We can say that now it is not growing, but is recovering after a drawdown amid changes in credit conditions and the introduction of escrow accounts in residential housing with preferential loans, the expert believes.
For example, according to the results of the first quarter, the supply in the primary market of luxury suburban real estate in the Moscow region expanded by 70% in annual terms, which is the highest figure in the last eight years, Arborestate noted.
"The sales volume was 46% higher than in the same period last year," the company added. — At the same time, the Moscow region took the first place among the regions of Russia in terms of price growth for suburban real estate: in 2025, comfort-class houses rose in price by 10%, and business-class houses by 30%.
Finished houses in the Moscow region have increased in price by 15-30%, depending on the segment. In the mass, their cost reached 12-30 million rubles, in business class - 30-60 ml h, and in elite locations it starts from 200 million rubles and can exceed 1 billion rubles.
However, according to Anton Saukov, if the average price is sq. m. m in the secondary market of urban housing now amounts to 132.9 thousand rubles, and in new buildings — 161.6 thousand rubles, while in country houses it is at the level of 85-90 thousand rubles.
— That is, the square here is 1.5–1.9 times cheaper, — he stressed.
What supports the demand
In 10 years, the individual construction market has gone from spontaneous development to a civilized sector of the economy with clear rules, Svetlana Kuzmenko, Executive Secretary of the Public Council under the Ministry of Construction of Russia, said at the Open Village 2026 exhibition.
— IHS has finally consolidated its status as a full-fledged participant in the national project "Infrastructure for Life," she recalled. — In 2021, the initiative "My Private House" was launched. Starting in 2022, preferential mortgage programs — family and others — have been extended to private homes. The approaches implemented in multi-apartment construction began to be applied in residential housing.
According to her, in the first five months of 2026, Russians received 42,000 loans for the construction and purchase of finished houses worth 226 billion rubles. Compared to last year, the indicator increased by 1.7 times, both in terms of the number of loans and the amount issued.
At the same time, a large proportion of loans over the past year and a half have been issued under preferential programs, primarily family mortgages, the director of the DOM Housing Development division said at the exhibition.Russian Federation Evgeny Kvasenkov.
— At the moment, about 50 thousand mortgage contracts have already been launched for the construction of residential housing under these programs — this is almost 5 million square meters of housing, — he said. — Despite the difficult economic situation, the total volume of the banks' portfolio of loans to contractors in residential housing is about 10 billion rubles.
What problems persist in residential housing
Anton Saukov noted that the main problem of the suburban real estate market is the lack of liquid facilities. Customer needs and available offers often do not match.
— This is especially true for finished houses: buyers' expectations of quality and price often do not match what is on the market. The gap averages 10-15%," he said. — There is an acute shortage of houses with good repairs for adequate money. In order to prevent further price increases, they began to save on everything from fences to finishing and landscaping. And the buyers were not ready for such a reversal.
At the same time, the average cost of houses remained virtually unchanged over the year, increasing by only 3.8% to 10.8 million rubles. This is due to a change in the structure of the offer: there are fewer objects with high-quality finishes on the market.
In such conditions, it is increasingly difficult for buyers to find ready-made options that meet their expectations. Therefore, many people still choose individual design and construction of a house "for themselves," confirmed Vyacheslav Astafyev, founder of Starkwood.
— The market is facing a number of challenges. Firstly, protective loan rates and changes in the terms of preferential programs," the expert added. — Secondly, construction inflation, which is estimated at 7-20% in 2026 and directly increases the final estimates. There is also an acute shortage of professional staff. Because of this, salaries in the construction sector increased by 15-20%, which increased the financial burden on contractors and caused cash gaps, the freezing of individual construction projects and the postponement of deadlines.
By the end of the year, prices for high-quality residential housing will most likely not decrease: the cost of construction remains high, and there are still not enough houses that meet the requirements of buyers, Vyacheslav Astafyev believes. At the same time, pent—up demand is accumulating in the market - some buyers are ready to enter into transactions as soon as credit conditions become softer.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
