ArmInfo. In August 2020, 327 transactions for the purchase and sale of real estate were made in Armenia by foreigners, which is 9.4% higher than the July indicator. At the same time, of the total number of transactions, only 100 accounted for acquisition.
According to the State Real Estate Cadastre, in total, the share of non-residents accounted for 6.7% of the total volume of transactions (versus 6% in July this year) registered during the reporting period. As a result, in August of this year foreigners bought 116 units of estate with growth per month by 17.2%, and with a decline in y-o-y terms by 50%. At the same time, the lion's share in terms of buying real estate falls on apartments - 43 or 37.1% (with a decline in a year by 60.9%, and an increase in a month by 25.6%), followed by land (30.2 %), own houses (20.7%), and the lowest percentage falls on the purchase of buildings of industrial importance (0.9%).
At the same time, 217 units of real estate were sold by non-residents during the reporting period (with a y- o-y decline of 43.6%, and an increase of 8.5% per month). Exactly as in the case of buying, the lion's share of sales is also accounted for 80 or 36.9% of apartments (over the year, apartment sales decreased by 54.3%, and increased by 5.3% over the month), followed by land (30.9%), own homes (28.6%), and the smallest number of sales are for garages (1.8%). The most active buyers of real estate in Armenia are citizens of the Russian Federation, the United States, and European countries, while the property is sold mainly by citizens of the Russian Federation, followed by citizens of the CIS countries and the United States by a large margin.
In all cases, the statistics for August demonstrate the dominance of sales over purchases. According to experts, such negative dynamics could be influenced by changes in the Tax Code of the Republic of Armenia for the application of new mechanisms for calculating property tax based on its market price, not the cadastral price. The factor of disappointment with the results of the velvet revolution and the unsatisfactory pace of the promised reforms is also possible.