March 19, 2014. Yekaterinburg existing homes market has been going through the same trends as at the beginning of the year: prices have been rising gradually, while the supply keeps shrinking, Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s press service reports.

According to the chamber’s analytical data, the median price of a square meter of housing came to 73,892 RUR on March 17, 2014. This figure has grown by 0.7% over the last few weeks and by 1.5% since the beginning of the year.

‘Since the start of the year, the number of apartments offered for sale has dropped by 11%, that is, by nearly 1,000 apartments. However, the existing supply is still quite enough to meet the demand. There are about 7,500 apartments and 1,400 rooms offered for sale in the Ural Chamber of Real Estate’s database alone. Besides, there are a lot of offers on the new homes market, and the interest in new homes keeps rising every year. Some 2.4m sq m of housing are put up in Yekaterinburg every year, while the price comes to 62,870 RUR per sq m on average,’ the press service explains.

At the same time, prices deviated quite a lot from the median figure in some segments. In downtown Yekaterinburg, for example, the asking price decreased down to 95,825 RUR per sq m (1.6%) within the course of four weeks, while prices in the city’s fourth most expensive area grew by 2.1% and reached 54,663 RUR per sq m.

‘Such considerable changes in the median figures mainly have to do with the significant variations in the amount and structure of supply. Under the current political and economical uncertainty, both buyers and sellers tend to act emotionally rather than rationally,’ the chamber’s analysts say.