In March and April, there were nearly twice as many apartment sales on the secondhand market than in January and February: 9,124 compared with 4,626, respectively, according to data from the Moscow branch of the Federal Registration Service.
"The March-April figures reflect the demand bubble that we recorded in February-March," said Dmitry Taganov, director of Inkom's analytic center.
"And the lower indicators in January-February reflect the fall in demand at the end of last year," he said.
Without question, there are more sales now compared with January and February, said Grigory Poltorak, president of Best Realty. "People are recovering: They were promised housing for next to nothing, but the miracle never happened, and sellers aren't significantly lowering their prices," he said.
Demand is slowly returning, and buyers are more and more making purchases, said Alexei Kudryavtsev, head of marketing at the real estate company MIAN.
"We haven't noticed a significant change. Altogether the situation hasn't gotten worse, but nor has it gotten better," said Omar Gadzhiyev, managing partner of Panorama Estate. "Demand has become more active, but it has an observational character," he said.
Compared with last year, there are several times fewer deals being concluded, said Poltorak of Best Realty.
But Federal Registration Service data does not confirm that view: In January 2008, there were 1,951 purchases registered, compared with 2,674 deals in the same month this year.
On average, the first four months of this year saw a fall of 26 percent compared with the same period last year.
More than half of this decline can be explained by the steep drop in the number of mortgage deals. In the first four months of this year, only 1,094 mortgages were secured, compared with 3,622 in the same period last year.
If not for the deals lost because of the fall in mortgages, the year-on-year drop would only be 12 percent, said Alexei Dorosh, director of sales at mortgage broker Kreditmart.
The rate of decline of dollar-denominated offer prices for Moscow apartments has slowed and by the end of April stood at about 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent per week, several times less than in January and February, according to IRN.ru.
IRN.ru put the maximum dollar price at $6,122 per square meter on Oct. 6 -- now it stands at $4,206.
But deals are rarely concluded at the offer price. "If you sell an apartment at a big discount, it will go quickly. But if you hold it at midmarket price, then it will take a while," Gadzhiyev said. "Calls come in immediately for those apartments whose owners are lowering the prices by at least 10 percent."
There is some haggling now, but no serious discounts like those that developers are giving.
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