St. Petersburg, 1 February 2023. In 2022, the number of shared equity agreements with mortgage loans in St. Petersburg’s new housing market amounted to 33,500. Mortgage-loan deals made up 79% of all home purchases last year, which is higher than 65% in 2021 and 61% in 2020.

The increase of mortgage deals share in 2022 was driven by a decline in the number of home purchases without using mortgage loans to less than a half of the previous year’s number. In 2021, about a third of all deals in the new housing market (34% of the value of all shared equity agreements) was financed without mortgage loans, whereas in 2022 just 21% of all share equity agreements were not financed via mortgage loans.

However, demand for mortgage loans was bolstered by widely used bank-developer partnership programmes offering buyers mortgage loans at near-zero interest rates. As a result, the share of mortgage deals in December reached 90% of registered shared equity agreements, while the actual weighted average interest rate for taken loans plunged below 3%.  

Elisaveta Conway, Nikoliers regional director for residential property and land development department: “In 2022, some potential buyers’ focus may have shifted to overseas property markets or to country homes, while some of them may have preferred to retain their money in bank deposits. These factors combined to reduce buying activities in St. Petersburg’s new housing market, where demand plummeted 20-40% across various segments.