In December, the volume of funds in escrow accounts decreased again

At the end of 2022, the amount of funds contributed by citizens to escrow accounts as part of project financing for housing construction amounted to 4.13 trillion rubles, the Central Bank announced on Friday. Over the year, the amount increased by 1 trillion rubles, which is almost half the growth in 2021 (1.9 trillion rubles).

The reduction in receipts to such accounts began in the spring, then the increase in funds to them gradually, but with a strong lag behind the indicators of 2021, began to recover. However, in November, for the first time, a decrease in cash balances on escrow accounts was recorded – by 26 billion rubles. In December, the decline continued – the amount of funds on escrow accounts decreased even more significantly, by 47.9 billion rubles. This means that the disclosure of escrow accounts, which involves the transfer of money to developers after the commissioning of the facility (90% of apartment buildings are built as part of project financing), exceeds the inflow of funds from equity holders. This is due, in particular, to the fact that mortgages have not had the best of times this year — after the April failure caused by rising rates, the market took a long time to recover to the level of 2021. In December, against the backdrop of expectations of the curtailment of preferential mortgages for new buildings, and then the announced increase in rates on it from 7% to 8%, a record 696.9 billion rubles were issued. housing loans.

The second factor in the decline is that the rate of opening escrow accounts in 2022 was well ahead of 2021. Almost 2.2 trillion rubles were transferred to developers. against 945 billion rubles. The maximum fell on the fourth quarter – 865 billion rubles. (almost half – in December), which is associated with an increase in housing commissioning by the end of the year.

Since June 2022, the volume of commissioning of apartment buildings has been losing growth, but in December they returned to plus again – 8.2 million against 7.8 million square meters. m in December 2021. In total, in 2022, developers commissioned 45.5 million square meters. m of housing (plus 4.7% by 2021). It should be noted that for developers, a reduction in the amount of funds in escrow accounts is fraught with an increase in rates on loans for projects due to a decrease in loan coverage by equity holders. According to the Central Bank, as of January 1, 2023, the average rate on loan agreements, depending on the federal district, ranged from 4.61% to 6.17% per annum.

Evgenia Kryuchkova