This year’s housing market development can be defined as stagnating in comparison with last year; the number of actual transactions has gone down dramatically against the second half of 2006, experts of Ural Chamber of Real Estate say. This drop in the buying activity can be explained by a dramatic increase in housing prices, since such increases have led to decreasing demand before. At the same time, the amount of transactions completed in the first quarter of 2007 is not any smaller than in the first quarter of 2006; moreover, this figure outstrips the data for 2002-2005. This means current stagnation could be short-lived and may not last until the end of the year.

‘To move on, however, a lot of players will have to reconsider their pricing policies and get ready to compete more fiercely,’ the Chamber reports.