S.Karpukhin / REUTERS

GC PIK

Developer. The main shareholder is Suleiman Kerimov’s Nafta-Moscow (38.3%). Capitalization (LSE) – $1.26 billion. Revenue (2011, management reporting data) – 52.1 billion rubles.

In 2011, the PIK Group of Companies sold 510,000 sq. m of residential real estate (up 30.1% compared to 2010) and earned 34.9 billion rubles (up 49.5%), the company reported yesterday. The increase in the number of transactions is due to the increase in the number of projects, PIK explains: in 2011, the company launched 41 new projects, compared to 25 a year earlier. It is characteristic that out of 41 projects, 15, i.e. 37%, are located outside Moscow and the Moscow Region, compared to only four such projects in 2010, or 16%. This illustrates the degree of recovery of the real estate market in various regions of Russia, the company explains. True, this is a bet on the long term, in 2011, 81.1% of sales were in Moscow and the Moscow Region, compared to 83% a year earlier.

Other developers also report growth in demand in the regions. The SU-155 group of companies built 1.3 million square meters of residential and commercial real estate in 2011, of which about 500,000 square meters were in the regions; growth is more than 45% compared to 2010, the company reported in December. In January-November 2011, regional sales grew by 51% compared to the same period in 2010, says a company representative.

In 2011, 1.326 million square meters of housing were put into operation in the Samara Region – 29% more than in 2010, says Oksana Nikitina, Deputy Director for Development of the Samara-based OOO Monitoring of the National Real Estate Market, citing data from the Povolzhsky Development Center Group of Companies. According to Nikitina, in 2011, the primary market was dominated by unfrozen projects, the construction of which began in 2006–2008.

Investors who froze their projects due to the crisis are returning to the market, moving from point development to block development, says Tatyana Romancheva, director of the Nizhny Novgorod Center for Scientific Expertise. According to Nizhny Novgorod Statistics, 198,729 sq. m of housing were built in Nizhny Novgorod in the first nine months of 2011 (185,998 sq. m in the same period of 2010). According to Romancheva's forecasts, at least 300,000 sq. m will be built in the city in the first nine months of this year, and about 394,000 sq. m in 2012.

In 2011, 2.396 million square meters of housing were commissioned in Tatarstan – 18% more than in 2010. Over the past year, no new projects appeared in new buildings – buildings laid down in 2008–2010 were completed, says Sergey Kashevarov, head of the new buildings department at Avangard-Realt: last year, demand for new buildings exceeded supply, and the trend continues today.

According to the Petersburg Real Estate consulting center, in 2011 the growth in sales of housing in new buildings in Petersburg and the suburbs was no less than 35% compared to 2010.

According to the Agency for Development of Real Estate Investments, 2.3 million square meters of housing were sold in St. Petersburg in 2011, and 2 million square meters in 2010.

In Moscow and the region, demand for housing began to recover in 2010, in the regions – since the end of 2010, says leading economist of the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting Igor Polyakov. He links the increase in demand in the regions with the growth of real incomes of the population, the use of mortgages. In addition, in some regions the number of investment transactions, previously popular mainly in the Moscow region, has increased, the expert notes.

Another reason is lower prices than in the capital, says Polyakov. Over the year, prices for sold real estate in Moscow increased by 25.7% to 115,100 rubles per 1 sq. m (excluding business class), prices for properties located in the Moscow region and other regions of Russia - by 11.7% to 71,600 rubles per 1 sq. m and by 8.5% to 39,500 rubles per 1 sq. m, respectively, writes PIK.

Prices on the primary market in Samara increased by 11% in 2011, and for housing with the highest degree of readiness – by 25% (data as of the end of the fourth quarter). The average price of 1 sq. m. of housing in new buildings in Nizhny Novgorod is now 44,900 rubles (6.6% more than at the end of 2010). In Tatarstan, according to Kashevarov, prices have increased by 20% over the year.

Developers set off for the regions