The seasonal revival of the apartment rental market in Kyiv warmed up the greediness of apartment owners, according to KW. Prices jumped 10 – 20% over the same period last year, KW wrote in an article this week.
Despite buoyancy on the rental market experts expect no traditional jump in apartment rent in September–October. The fact is that this year housing rental went up a few months earlier having warmed up in July – August and strange as it may seem EURO 2012 had nothing to do with this increase. “Initially prices went up due to the large number of staff and construction workers who came to Kyiv as seasonal workers. Then rental was raised even higher because of students who decided to look for an apartment in Kyiv in advance,” Serhiy Kostetskiy, a marketing expert at SV Development, told KW.
Apartment rental in Kyiv has increased by approximately 15% since the beginning of this year. Such an increase is most noticeable in the low-cost segment (which is the most popular in terms of the number of deals made). Last year apartment owners leased them out for UAH 2,500 – 3,000 a month. Today, those same apartments are rented for UAH 3,500 – 4,000 a month. Project manager at the Planeta Obolon real estate agency Ihor Komar says apartments listed in real estate agencies’ databases at lower prices (UAH 3,000 – 3,400) are either very low (living space of less than 25 sq. m.) or are very shabby and located on the outskirts of the city. Such apartments find tenants very quickly. At the same time, decent 2-room apartments for which tenants are ready to pay more than UAH 4,500 are in highest demand these days.
Meanwhile, it looks like new Kyivans change their preferences in the choice of districts. “In previous years people tried to find an apartment on the right bank of the Dnipro River. Today, the situation is totally the opposite – tenants believe the most attractive apartments are located in the new districts on the left bank,” says Kostetskiy. Indeed, Poznyaky, Kharkivskiy and Troyeshchyna districts are more popular today than they were a few years ago.
“The variation in prices of apartments in a similar location and with similar conditions on the right and on left banks starts at UAH 500 – 600 to reach UAH 1,000 – 1,500,” Kostetskiy concluded when commenting on the market situation for KW.