A year without a mortgage
The mortgage is one year old. It was in September 1998 that the mayor of Moscow issued the first certificates for the purchase of housing to ten lucky ones. After this, mortgage programs began to grow like mushrooms after rain. Kommersant decided to find out how things stand with mortgages today.

So far, mortgages are doing poorly. According to the Department of Municipal Housing, only 63 mortgage agreements are registered in Moscow - a drop in the ocean.
One of the reasons is obvious: it is very difficult for a client who applies to a bank for a loan to prove his solvency. Few people will want to disclose the sources of their income, much less provide a certificate confirming the payment of all taxes on these amounts (this is required by the bank). Therefore, many potential borrowers are eliminated at the stage of filling out documents. And many “break down” at the stage of collecting documents: in order to bypass all the necessary authorities (from the DEZ to the dermatovenous dispensary), you need to spend a lot of nerves and time - at least two to three months.
However, even if you have collected all the documents and the bank has no doubts about your solvency, they may still not give you a loan. The fact is that the Moscow government simply does not have money for the mortgage program. External investors are still only considering the issue of allocating the first $75 million (of the $500 million promised for mortgages in the capital) and are unlikely to provide it in the next two months. For this reason, a month ago, at a meeting of the mortgage commission under the Moscow government, it was decided to limit the choice of apartments for borrowers. Now, with a mortgage loan, it will be possible to purchase an apartment at a price no higher than $600 per meter (previously, the maximum price was $1,500 per meter). However, this measure is unlikely to change the situation for the better. In the absence of funds, authorized banks often simply refuse to issue loans, since they do not receive compensation and incur losses (under the existing scheme, banks lend to borrowers at their own expense, and then return the money to them).
However, sooner or later the money will be found, and the execution of contracts will be simplified. Is it worth buying an apartment with a mortgage then? You will find the answer to this question, as well as information about all mortgage programs in Russia, in the new issue of Kommersant-Dengi magazine.

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 173 dated September 23, 1999, p. 9