Bloomberg

A. Makhonin

Realtors have recently noticed that attics are becoming popular among wealthy Muscovites, and accordingly, the supply is growing.

The location under the roof itself provides mansards with unique views of the city, but it also does not allow the price of this property to increase too much. According to realtors and developers, the price range is from $5,000 to $30,000 per 1 sq. m. For example, from 12-15 million rubles for a property in the area of the Aeroport metro station to 20-30 million rubles in Khamovniki.

A dovecote for an aesthete

In a sun-drenched attic above the technical floor of a panel house in the area of 1905 Street, the writer Alexander Gavrilov, widely known in narrow circles of Moscow bohemia, lives modestly and tastefully. From the windows of his apartment there is a wonderful view of the Vagankovskoye Cemetery, which is immersed in greenery in the summer, and the old tram depot - a monument to the era of constructivism and the industrial revolution, built in 1909. Snacking on Swiss cheese with Uzbek cherries, he slowly talks about the meaning of life, officials, builders and creativity.

Gavrilov rented the apartment from an ad in a newspaper. The owner, a Muscovite pensioner, told the writer about how this house was built and finally completed 10 years ago, and how officials remembered about social housing (i.e. the need to allocate apartments in it for those on the waiting list) when the house had already been roofed over. And there would have been indignation among citizens, and the end of the tale, if not for the creative approach of the developer (DSK-1). Building codes allowed another attic floor to be built above the technical one, which the new owners dubbed among themselves the "dovecote". Now in a three-room apartment of 80 sq. m for 75,000 rubles. The writer Gavrilov lives and works with his wife and two cats for about $1,000 per month (plus utilities), and dreams of earning enough money in his literary career to one day buy the attic from the pensioner.

"Although attics are still a rare commodity in Moscow, their number has increased significantly in recent years," say experts from the company "Miel-Novostroyki." "Given the shortage of available land and height restrictions in Moscow, developers can use attics to increase the area of already built or reconstructed buildings." In most cases, apartments with attics are offered in the city center on Arbat, in Zamoskvorechye and the Patriarch's Ponds area in business and elite class buildings. The average cost of such apartments is 450,000-1,500,000 rubles per 1 sq. m.

In old Moscow courtyards, you can find houses with spacious, well-appointed residential attics, with luxurious two-level apartments or small superstructures under a gable roof. “In any case, this is a very specific product, designed for a narrow audience and therefore presented on the market in a limited volume,” says Irina Egorova, managing partner of Soho Estate. According to the agency’s statistics, out of 100 clients, only one shows interest in an attic in order to live in it. “They are used not only as living space. Often, attics are converted into studios by artists, such as the attics on Patriarch’s Ponds,” adds Egorova.

"This is illiquid or a specific offer, an acquired taste," comments Irina Mogilatova, CEO of the Tweed agency. She does not notice any formed demand for attics: "These are more likely random transactions."

According to market participants, attics were especially popular in the 1990s, when there were no other offers on the emerging luxury housing market. By adding and re-equipping the attic, it was possible to almost double the size of the home. By developing the technical floor, owners of apartments on the top floors turned an ordinary apartment into a two-level one. Irina Egorova notes that it is precisely as the 2nd floor of a two-level apartment that attics are most often encountered.

In the late 1990s, the city's Urban Development Code no longer regulated the height of the ridge and cornice of buildings. Having analyzed the feasibility of new construction and the addition of attics, elite developers of the wild 90s realized that this could be profitable.

Firstly, without increasing the number of storeys of the building, you can get additional usable area; secondly, the arrangement of the attic allows you to offer some exclusive product (there can't be many of them in the house); thirdly, attics can be built on, bypassing the zero cycle (preparation of the pit, laying the foundation, etc.) and significantly reducing the costs of laying communications due to connection to those already in the house. In addition, on the top floor, above which there is nothing heavy, it is possible to use lighter and cheaper building materials. As a result, the cost of building 1 sq. m of the attic is 15-20% cheaper than in other premises located below.

In modern development projects, elite Moscow mansards appeared in the early 2000s in the residential complexes “Znamenka Residence” and “Agalarov House”. “You could say that about 15 years ago, the Moscow elite real estate market began with mansards,” recalls Irina Egorova.

There are practically no apartments with attics in new buildings now. "Basically, what used to be an attic has become a penthouse today," says Irina Mogilatova. Penthouses are made larger in area, avoiding sloping roofs that complicate the organization of space. And such a product can be sold at a much higher price.

A dream without a residence permit

Nevertheless, over the past two years, Moscow developers have brought to the residential real estate market a dozen new projects with "attics". Among them are the multifunctional complex "Park Mira" from Sminex, "Danilovskaya Manufaktura" - a project of KR Properties, the residential complex "Nikolaevsky Dom", Clerkenwell House, Manhattan House (from the same developer), "Dom na Mayakovke" from the company "Top Level", The Loft and Loft Garden (Red Development), Loft Factory (BRIK Group).

Modern attics (garret-type rooms under a gable roof) differ from those located in reconstructed old residential buildings in the center not only in construction technologies. Most often, such rooms appear after the reconstruction of former factory buildings or multifunctional complexes and are sold as apartments (general-purpose premises). Accordingly, they do not have the status of residential premises and it is impossible to register in them. The cost of such apartments under the roof varies from 250,000 to 800,000 rubles per 1 sq. m.

Alexander Poduskov, sales director at KR Properties (the company began equipping apartments with attics in its properties in 2002), believes that attics are even more profitable for developers than “standard” apartments: “Compared to classic apartments, the cost of attics is 10-17% higher (since they have the same characteristics as penthouses). The greatest demand is for lots of 90-120 sq. m at $14,000-15,000 per sq. m.”

"The price of the existing supply of mansards is currently approximately equal to the cost of 1 sq. m. of an apartment in an elite building in a similar area," compares Olga Smirnova, head of the residential real estate department at Bluestone Group. She believes that developers in this case seriously inflate prices: "I know of cases where the developer was forced to reduce prices, since the initially declared figures deterred the buyer."

The Loft project (17 Dukhovskoy Pereulok, not far from Tulskaya metro station) offers attics in a new 2-story mansion priced from $4,292 to $6,000 per sq. m. Apartments with attics in Loft Factory (near Baumanskaya metro station on Novorizhanskaya Street) – $5,600–6,250 per sq. m.

In the Sminex projects "Park Mira" and Tivoli, apartments with attics with an area of 37 sq. m are sold. On the secondary market, according to brokers, they are offered from $5,500 to $8,160 per 1 sq. m - a small-sized and relatively budget option. "When renovating a building (as in the case of "Park Mira"), developers do not have the right to increase the number of floors," explains the appearance of the new format in the offer, Sergey Sviridov, Development Director of Sminex. - Therefore, we try to use the usable area of the building as much as possible and wherever technically possible, we have attics. In addition, if you think everything through in advance, their creation does not require serious efforts from the developer."

But if at first developers made small-sized (50–60 sq. m) attics, now a significant part of the offer starts from 100 sq. m. Olga Smirnova believes that this is logical: “In the modern Russian understanding, it makes sense to classify an attic as belonging to the upper segment of the market, therefore, it should be a large space, with high ceilings, with the possibility of building a mezzanine, and not a small-sized pencil case.”

When it comes to building a mansard or reconstructing an attic in residential buildings, developers are not particularly enthusiastic about the matter. “Developers working in the residential segment have long since abandoned mansards, as they have encountered difficulties in selling such a product,” comments Elena Semina, executive director of the Usadba agency. “The loss of total area due to slopes and low insolation mean that such housing is difficult to sell. It is easier for a developer to build a cube with a straight roof than to get creative with mansards, especially since a complex roof line is always more expensive. And the selling price of mansard apartments is on average 25% lower compared to apartments on other floors in the same building.”

Do it yourself

Those who are still haunted by the romance of roofs, but do not have enough money for a penthouse, can try to turn the attic in the house into a mansard on their own.

First, you need to make the attic your property. The procedure is as follows: decide on a suitable site (attic or technical floor), find out whether the house is included in the capital reconstruction plan or demolition program (if the house is on these lists, you can forget about the idea), obtain written consent from all owners of housing and other premises located in the house, collect documents for the Moscow Housing Inspectorate, prepare design and estimate documentation for the construction of the attic and obtain a decision from the State Construction Supervision Commission on the development of the attic space (or its separate section). Then you can register ownership of the premises with the Moscow Office of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography (Rosreestr). After registration in accordance with the developed and approved project, you can begin developing the attic.

This procedure has been in effect in the capital since 2011, based on the Moscow Government Resolution of October 25, 2011, No. 508-PP on the organization of the redevelopment and (or) re-planning of residential and non-residential premises in apartment buildings and residential buildings. Until now, all attics and basements in residential buildings were under the control of prefectures. They held competitions for the re-equipment of attics and issued permits. Since 2004, such competitions have not been held in Moscow. There are currently no statistics on the number of residential attics in the capital either in Rosreestr, or in Gosstroynadzor, or in the Moscow Housing Inspectorate. The reason is simple: the attic is either registered as a separate residential premises (i.e. an apartment), or is attached to an existing living space. Thus, Rosreestr specialists cannot single out the attic from the general list of apartment stock.

Vladimir Kushnarev, director of the elite real estate department at Est-a-Tet, does not believe that the change in the procedure for registering attics as private property has made it simpler and clearer. “The attic is part of the common property of the building, so the annexation process takes quite a long time. Particular attention should be paid to the legal preparation of documents, since in the event of a violation of current regulations, the transaction for annexing the attic can be challenged in court,” he warns.

The realtor's words are confirmed by the assistant to the head of Rosreestr for Moscow, Roman Strokov: "When attics were under the jurisdiction of prefectures, there was a clear scheme, reporting, control, statistics were kept. Now, it seems to me, this process, although it has become more democratic, has hardly become simpler. I can hardly imagine the residents of an apartment building who jointly decided to allocate part of the common property to one of the owners free of charge and allowed something to be built on the roof of the building. People have become more attentive and cautious about any property transactions."

If you don’t have the resolve to get involved in communication with your neighbors, you can, as an experiment, rent an attic for a month, a year, or two – as is common in Europe. “Both practical and romantic,” says writer Gavrilov.

Demand for attics is growing