Trends and prospects of Kyiv’s housing market
Rental prices are rising in Kyiv - what's the reason? (Photo:Photo:mtot.gov.ua)
Kyiv has once again become a beacon of
economic opportunity for Ukrainians due to its relative
safety and availability of jobs. Demand for rental housing is now a third
higher than at the beginning of the year, and landlords have started raising
prices.
Dmitry Korchev, director of the Brock Realty real estate agency, told NV he recently rented out his last apartment for UAH 7,000 per month. This is rather an exception, but his colleagues from other real estate agencies confirm this trend: it is now possible to rent out housing that customers were not even looking at a few months ago.
Demand, they estimate, is now a third higher than in winter, which allows landlords to raise prices by 10%. However, rents have not yet rebounded to their pre-war levels.
People are coming back
3.6 million people now live in Kyiv, compared to 3.9 million before the beginning of the full-scale invasion, mayoral advisor Dmitry Belotserkovets told Espresso.
The people of Kyiv are continuing to return, and realtors are feeling it. Oksana Suslova of the Left Bank real estate agency says there have been a number of indicators of the market strengthening.
“Activity in the rental housing market is now higher. People have begun to come and look at what is on offer, and new options have appeared,” she explains.
Korchev says that against this background, demand has also decreased in Lviv and other cities in western Ukraine, which suggests that there are people returning home.
“Residents of regions like Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhya are also choosing the capital,” says Yuriy Pita, president of the Association of Real Estate Specialists (ASNU).
He adds that Kyiv is considered the safest city in Ukraine due to the large number of Western air defense systems. On top of that, there’s plenty of work to go around. According to the work.ua recruitment management system, in April the number of vacancies increased by 13% in Kyiv Oblast, to 25.7 thousand.
Prices have gone up
According to Suslova from Left Bank, apartments costing up to UAH 5,000 ($135) per month were renting out well a few months ago, but other apartment owners had to wait for weeks for clients and make concessions, like agreeing to rent out to families with children or pets. Now there are fewer such offers.
The greatest demand is for housing in areas near metro stations or in buildings erected in the past 7-10 years, says Suslova. Unlike the winter period, when Kyiv, like other large cities, suffered from power outages, now potential tenants are not afraid to rent housing on high floors.
“Customers are paying attention to the proximity of buildings to power infrastructure and railway stations,” says Suslova.
“However, we recently rented an apartment near Lukyanivska metro station, even though (Russian) missiles have struck the area three times before.”
Pita adds that demand is gradually increasing for apartments located in Kyiv Oblast outside the city itself – even in towns that fell under Russian occupation, like Bucha and Irpin.
Greater demand has led to a 10% increase in rents, says Pita. In Kyiv, one can still rent an apartment for 5-6 thousand UAH per month, plus utility. These options are primarily in Soviet-era apartment blocks or studio apartments on the outskirts of the city and away from metro stations, for example, in Troyeshchyna or Voskresenka, where units rent for roughly UAH 5,500 per month.
“However, despite the low price, there are not very many people who want to live in these areas. In Darnitsya, for example, which is closer to the metro and has better transport connections, there is more active demand,” says Suslova.
The best housing options can be found for UAH 7,000-8,000 per month, including apartments in nine-story buildings in good condition, not far from metro stations. Apartments in new buildings will cost more – upwards of UAH 11,000. So far, housing prices remain below pre-war levels.
Realtors surveyed by NV are confident that rent prices will rise in price by another 10% this year. The next period of price increases will be observed in fall, when students from other cities will come to Kyiv, which will lead to an increase in demand for apartment rentals.
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