‘Another loophole is closing’: housing around Kazan to become more unaffordable
How tightening rural mortgage conditions will change the real estate market
Following the tightening “family” and IT mortgages, the authorities decided to make the rural mortgage more targeted — designed exclusively for rural residents. It is no secret that the programme was very popular among residents of the suburbs of large cities, including Kazan, and Tatarstan entered the top 3 leaders in the country in terms of its issuance. Individual housing construction was actively developing around the capital of the republic under this state program. Now Kazan residents are trying to grasp the cheap mortgages.
Rural mortgages will become unavailable to Kazan residents
The Russian Ministry of Agriculture proposes that the government adjust the conditions for issuing rural mortgages. Changes are being made to the decision on providing subsidies from the budget to banks and Dom.RF. The main amendment is related to limiting the territory of the programme: in particular, rural settlements and urban-type settlements located close to large cities and regional capitals may be excluded from it, which will limit the use of rural mortgages for the construction of summer cottages and houses in cottage villages.
After the changes, the Rural Mortgage programme will become less attractive, as the distance from the city increases — it will be possible to buy housing no closer than 50 km from regional capitals and within a radius of 30 km from cities with a population of over 100 people.
The state programme has been implemented by the operator Dom.RF since 2020. According to the current rules, the loan rate is from 0.1 to 3% (if the borrower violates the terms, it can be increased to the key rate of the Bank of Russia). The loan term is calculated for no more than 25 years, the maximum amount is 6 million rubles, however, spouses can take out two preferential mortgage loans for one property, increasing the amount to 12 million.
The size of the down payment under the program is at least 20% of the cost of housing. You can use this program only once in a lifetime. A house built under the Rural Mortgage must be suitable for permanent residence and provided with the necessary communications. In addition, under this state programme, you can buy housing in rural areas and on the primary market, but only in a building no higher than five floors.
Residents of Tatarstan took out rural mortgages for 15 billion rubles
Tatarstan is among the leading regions in terms of the volume of rural mortgages issued among other regions, the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Tatarstan reported. Only Novosibirsk and Krasnodar regions are ahead of Tatarstan. In total, 5,500 mortgage loans worth more than 15 billion rubles have been issued since the start of the program in 2020 and in the first half of 2024. At the same time, the number of applications received exceeded 19,000 for about 60 billion rubles.
In 2024, 453 rural mortgages worth 2.3 billion rubles were issued in Tatarstan in the first half of the year. For the same period in 2023, 465 mortgage loans worth 1.2 billion rubles were issued. The number of loans issued remained at the level of last year, while the amount of loans doubled, which is due to the increase in the maximum loan amount from 3 to 6 million rubles, the Ministry of Agriculture explained. As of 1 August 2024, the number of loans increased to 533 for a total of 2.7 billion rubles.
Despite the fact that housing via a rural mortgage could be bought on the new housing market, the share of such transactions was small.
Developers interviewed by Realnoe Vremya said that this is due to the fact that the programme is limited by the number of floors. Therefore, private houses are mainly bought and built under the Rural Mortgage programme.
At the same time, the new changes in the conditions of rural mortgages can facilitate the development of territories at a significant distance from large cities by developers, which, in turn, will have a positive effect on the development of the infrastructure of these places. “Nevertheless, it is a pity that they do not apply to rural areas near cities, because these are also villages,” Nikolayev complained.
“We waited for approval for two months”
“There really were many people willing to take out a rural mortgage, but those who took it were those who were ready to wait two months for the approval of the property and land. Obtaining such a mortgage was long and painful. Those who could not or did not want to wait, switched to state support, but now there are no options at all,” says Marat Gallyamov, founder and director of the agency Etazhi Kazan.” “This programme has many limiting points. Limits often ran out. Also, people were scared off by the floating rate, which could at any moment rise to the market rate, and high insurance.”
Now this loophole will likely be closed. “But, probably, it is right, we need to help specifically rural residents, and not the agglomeration around the perimeter of Kazan where the price tag is already astronomical in connection with this opportunity and where people who live are far from rural,” Marat Gallyamov summed up.