| People waiting in line for housing will find themselves in commercially unfavorable conditions Buying a home, despite the government’s attempts to reduce the cost and simplify the mortgage mechanism, will be too expensive for most Russians for a long time. And many still hope to fall into the category of beneficiaries eligible to receive free subsidies. However, the amounts of these loans are increasingly falling behind reality every year. According to the Ministry of Industry and Energy, which is responsible for the housing market in the government of Mikhail Fradkov, on average in the country, loans can be obtained at the rate of $385 per sq. m. m. What housing beneficiaries can buy with this money remains a mystery.
The housing legislation reform initiated by the government, at first glance, has nothing to do with revising the list of citizens entitled to receive budget subsidies. The only people whose lives will be worsened by the “package to create an affordable housing market” are the poorest citizens. According to the logic of the reform, it will be impossible to get housing for free: only low-income people on the waiting list will be able to move into a state apartment and only on the terms of social rent, without hopes of its privatization.
For those who are no longer “poor”, but cannot yet classify themselves as “white collar” workers (able to afford a mortgage), free loans for the purchase of housing are still available. Loans can be obtained by joining the municipal queue to improve housing conditions, if the square footage of living space for each person does not exceed the social norm. If a citizen belongs to a preferential category, he is placed in a special queue. There are already several dozen categories of housing benefit recipients; almost anyone can get in line to receive such a subsidy if they want to. These are state employees of “all stripes” and civil servants, young families and internally displaced persons, military personnel and scientists, mothers of large families and northerners, judges and firefighters.
And although the system of housing benefits has not yet undergone a breakdown, as happened with social benefits, legislation is increasingly reoriented towards the “commercial” purchase of housing. The average market value of housing, from which the size of the required loan is calculated and which is revised quarterly for each region, is ridiculously low. For the fourth quarter of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Energy set the market value for calculating loans on average across the country at 11,170 rubles per sq. m. m ($385). And if somewhere in the village of the Krasnodar Territory there is a subsidy calculated at 10,500 rubles / sq. m. m ($362), can somehow bring the housing crisis of the family of a teacher and a senior lieutenant closer to a successful outcome, then in St. Petersburg a loan calculated from 13,600 rubles. ($468) will not allow you to buy anything more or less decent and suitable for living.
The methodology for calculating “market” prices for subsidies takes into account inflation, the cost of construction, and the cost of residential and secondary housing. Therefore, prices across regions correlate quite adequately with each other. Moscow is the most expensive, followed by the Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets districts, St. Petersburg and the Moscow region. The poorer the region, the more progressively the cost per meter decreases for calculating loans.
In Moscow, by order of the Ministry of Industry and Energy, the figure adopted for calculating subsidies is 17.5 thousand rubles / sq. m. m ($600), but the Moscow government, using its own reserves, slightly increases the estimated minimum, however, falling far short of the market level. Loans to Muscovites are now calculated at $830 per sq. m. m, which does not allow them to buy housing even in satellite towns near Moscow, but forces them to leave for the border of the region with the loss of work and all the ensuing consequences of changing their place of residence.
It would seem that every family standing in line to receive a subsidy should rejoice at any interest-free loan, from what calculation and in whatever amount it is provided. The catch, however, is that housing programs have a ceiling that the subsidy cannot exceed. The departments of housing policy and housing stock in each region issue each person on the waiting list with a certificate with the recommended area of the apartment for which the loan will be calculated. According to social standards, a family of four in the Moscow region is entitled to an apartment with an area of at least 48 square meters. m of total area; in fact, this is an apartment no less than three rubles. Social norms are set for each family member in the amount of 18 square meters. m of total area and at least 34 sq. m, if a person lives alone. At the same time, the law prohibits issuing subsidies for apartments where social norms are not met. True, the minimum social norm for calculating subsidies is allowed to be reduced from 18 square meters. m per person up to 16 sq. m, but this does not change matters significantly.
In the Moscow region, a family can be given a loan at the rate of 13,900 rubles. ($480) per sq. m, while inferior apartments on the secondary market in the cities closest to Moscow (Khimki, Mytishchi) are sold for 1100-1200 dollars per sq. m. m, in Klin - for $600 sq.m. meter.
The person on the waiting list will have to pay the difference out of his own pocket at once. It must be remembered that the subsidy is not issued in full, but depending on the availability of benefits or years spent in line, in the amount of 25-75% of the cost of the proposed apartment, calculated at the prices of the Ministry of Industry and Energy.
Therefore, every year, more and more often, unused subsidies are returned to the budget. According to the law, if a family has not found an apartment within six months after the money arrived in the bank account, it loses the right to a subsidy. And she has only one way out - to look for commercial creditors. That is, included in the mortgage. Irina SKLYAROVA |
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