Thursday, August 1 2013 17:06
Official data of growth in housing prices in Armenia run counter to market trends
ArmInfo. Despite the data of the State Committee of the Armenian Real Estate Cadastre, the housing market keeps on weakening. Some estate agents say that the housing prices in Armenia are inclined to drop as a result of the ongoing economic processes in the country. "The higher the food and services prices are, the less active the citizens are in the housing market", the head of "AR-GO Realty" real estate agency, Araik Gojabashyan, said to ArmInfo.
The Real Estate Cadastre reports that in the first half of 2013 the housing purchase and sale transactions in Yerevan grew by 5% as compared with the first half of 2012, and the flats in the apartment buildings of Yerevan rose in price by 7%.
According to Gojabashyan, in Jan-June 2013 the housing market of Armenia was rather passive as compared with Jan-June 2012, and one should not expect any serious changes in the short-term outlook amid the lack of new economic trends.
Over the past few years, the sellers in the secondary housing market have become concessive. "Earlier the deal-making process between a seller and a buyer was restricted to small price discounts, but now the sellers' price concessions have become more serious, and this also demonstrates the progressive decline in prices", said Gojabashyan. He added that over the past few years the number of one-room flats has dropped and made the segment of multiroom apartments more vulnerable.
As regards the condition of the primary housing market, the expert brushed aside the opinion that almost no high-class housing is sold in Armenia. Nevertheless, Gojabashyan thinks that the housing in the new buildings should not be much more expensive than the secondary housing. "This will increase the ordinary citizens' interest in the primary market", he said. He thinks that the activeness of the housing market will also depend on the mortgage lending terms.
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