The Gals Development Group of Companies has acquired a site in the north of Moscow where it will be able to build a complex of up to 110 thousand square meters worth approximately 18 billion rubles.
Despite the drop in demand for new buildings after the end of the preferential mortgage program, developers continue to invest in purchasing sites for housing construction. GC Gals Development has acquired a site in the north of Moscow where it will be able to build a complex of up to 110 thousand square meters worth about 18 billion rubles.
On September 10, 2024, the structures of the Gals Development Group, Gals-Development LLC and Gals Prof, received 99.9% and 0.1%, respectively, in Voykovskaya Imperiya LLC, Kommersant discovered in the SPARK database. The latter, through ShT-ShT LLC, owns the Na Voykovskaya business center of 7.1 thousand square meters and 3 hectares underneath it on Staropetrovsky Proyezd near the metro station of the same name in northern Moscow. The developer declined to comment. It was not possible to contact the previous founder of Voykovskaya Imperiya, Evgeny Dekman.
The portfolio of Gals Development includes 3.75 million square meters of various real estate in Moscow and the Moscow region. The owner of the developer until 2022 was the VTB Group, now the beneficiaries of the company are not disclosed.
The developer could have purchased a site in the north of the capital for 2 billion rubles, estimates Timur Ryvkin, director of the land development department at Nikoliers. Dmitry Shelkovsky, head of land assets and development at IBC Real Estate, does not rule out that the deal was not monetary for the parties, and Gals could have received the asset in exchange for a share in the future project. On this site, the developer will be able to build 90-115 thousand square meters of business-class housing, investing 16-18 billion rubles, calculated Mr. Ryvkin.
According to the expert, the asset is especially interesting together with the neighboring 1.7-hectare plot, purchased by the developer in the spring of 2024. A business quarter with a total area of over 100 thousand square meters will be built there, the developer's website says. Developers are investing in the construction of offices, hoping to receive benefits from the Moscow mayor's office when changing the type of permitted use of land for housing projects, says Andrey Trubachev, Director of the Capital Markets and Investments Department at CORE.XP.
Recently, investors' interest in housing sites has been growing. According to IBC Real Estate, from January to mid-September 2024, developers invested 173 billion rubles in such assets across Russia, which is 17% more year-on-year. This runs counter to the declining demand for new residential buildings after the cancellation of the mass preferential mortgage program. According to Dataflat.ru, in August 2024, the volume of sales in new buildings in Moscow and the Moscow region decreased by 53% year-on-year, to 404 thousand square meters. According to Ruslan Syrtsov, Managing Director of Metrium, at least one and a half to two years will pass from the purchase of a site to the start of construction, by which time the situation with demand may change for the better.
In addition, the mass housing segment reacted most painfully to the end of the preferential mortgage program. According to Yandex Real Estate calculations, average prices in Moscow new buildings of the comfort class in August compared to July decreased by 5.5%, to 293 thousand rubles per 1 sq. m, while business class areas increased in price by 1.6%, to 408 thousand rubles, in the elite segment - by 0.3%, to 611 thousand rubles. High-budget housing often plays the role of investment, and mortgage programs do not affect demand in this segment of real estate, explains Yandex Real Estate Commercial Director Evgeny Belokurov.
Until the end of the year, there may be some calm both on the part of developers and financial partners, who will monitor the developing situation regarding inflation and the dynamics of demand for new buildings and, based on this, adjust their strategy, says Ricci | M&A partner Petr Vinogradov. We can already talk about the formation of deferred demand for housing in the primary market, which will be realized with a decrease in the key rate and an increase in the availability of market mortgages, summarizes Irina Dobrokhotova, founder of the BnMAP.pro new buildings service.
