Russia's Donald Trump

If you do not live in Moscow, the name, Araz Agalarov (age 51), may not be familiar to you, but you will hear it more often very soon. Mr. Agalarov, a native of Baku, Azerbaijan, is a Moscow-based real estate developer and one of the hundred richest men in Russia. Agalarov has built a number of projects which, despite some initial skepticism about their financial viability, have all gone on to exceed expectations. Agalarov's first major project in Moscow was a super high-end shopping mall called Crocus City Mall. Completed in 2002, many thought the idea of putting an elite mall along the outer ring road around Moscow was ill advised. Would wealthy Muscovites fight traffic to drive to a shopping mall to buy their Prada, Armani, Gucci? Mr. Agalarov thought so and it turns out he was correct.

Russian banks are providing more and more ‘bad' mortgage credits

As if bad consumer credit, which plagues the Russian retail banking sector were not enough, a new crisis is looming, this time on the mortgage market. Or so the experts say. Igor Kuzin, board chairman at Delta Credit bank said this week that the local mortgage market may soon experience a crisis similar to that suffered by the United States earlier this year. The U.S. mortgage crisis was a result of simplified credit conditions and mortgage loans that required no down payment, which led to an insolvency crisis. Now Kuzin says that the same may be happening in Russia. Moreover, he claims that while "consumer crediting may survive the crisis of insolvency, for the mortgage market such crisis would be systemic".

Bankers Forecast Mortgage Crisis in Russia

The mortgage crisis is threatening Russia, said Igor Kuzin, board chairman of DeltaCredit Mortgage Bank. The crisis will be similar to the one that hit the United States, and it will be caused by risky loans that the banks are giving in big numbers.

The city of Krasnodar

With Sochi now the International Olympic Committee's choice to host the 2014 Winter Olympiad, the real work of preparing Krasnodar Krai for the expected influx of capital and visitors has only just begun. To give Russia Blog's readers a better picture of the tremendous economic development now underway in the region, we have asked Timothy Post, an American businessman working in the city of Krasnodar, to share some of his insights.

The Koreans plan to invest $US 3 BLN building in the Chechen capital

Reconstruction and development has become the priority in Chechnya's capital Grozny now that security has been restored. Foreign and Russian investors have been flooding the real estate market, raising concerns about a lack of affordable housing.n the past decade Chechnya’s economy and infrastructure have been devastated by war. Hundreds of facilities, including apartment buildings, were destroyed in clashes between federal troops and armed militants.

Prokom targets 500 mln usd in Russian real estate deals

Ryszard Krauze, owner of Polish blue chip software integrator Prokom, said he expects his real estate development arm to up its investment in Russian markets to 500 mln usd this year if two major projects in Moscow come through.'Russia is facing a huge construction boom. In Moscow you can just see it, and it is also starting to happen in other cities,' Krauze told daily Gazeta Wyborcza in an interview.

Foreign Buyers to Face Less Red Tape Chaos

Russia property - The trial that foreigners have to go through to register property in Russia was made a little less burdensome last week after officials moved to systematize the process across the country. The Federal Agency for Registering Real Estate introduced a uniform list for local authorities outlining the documents that need to be produced by foreigners wishing to register real estate deals.

Fishman sees opportunity in Russia

Developers are seeking creative solutions for coping with falling property yields and rising interest rates. A solution being taken by many developers is to enter riskier markets, such as India and Russia, which have become the hot-ticket items of the day. At a conference on “Building Trends in the Real Estate Market,” held by Maalot The Israel Rating Company Ltd. and the Chaim Katzman Gazit-Globe Real Estate Institute at Tel Aviv University, Eliezer Fishman said, “In Russia, construction is expensive while land is cheap, whereas in India, land is expensive, but construction is cheap.”

Moscow apartment prices were high. But how high exactly?

"The price band at the end of the first quarter in 2007 remained rather wide, ranging from $5,000 to $35,000 per square meter in the primary market, and from $6,000 to $40,000 in the secondary market," Litinetskaya told The Moscow News. The apartments offered at the lower end of this price range are located outside the capital's Central district. The highest prices, explains Litinetskaya, are traditionally characteristic of development projects in the downtown Khamovniki district, with buildings in 2nd Zachatyevsky Pereulok and Khilkov Pereulok topping the chart of Moscow's priciest properties for over a year now.

Real estate in Sochi

This tendency is unlikely to change, since private investors elated with the news about the upcoming Olympics are going to invest more, therefore, the share of apartments built on investors’ money is to increase from 5 to 50%. The prices on real estate are predicted to go up 40-50% within the next 2-3 years, when in Moscow they will grow 25% max.

Russia Experiences Business Real Estate Boom

Russia is experiencing an investment boom with the foreign capital inflow at $41 billion last year and as much as $60 billion in the first four months of the year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in St. Petersburg last month. The cumulative investments in Russia now exceed $150 billion. Business real estate is a much more profitable venture in Russia than it is in industrialized countries and in other emerging nations.

Oil, Oligarchs and Opulence

The "Red Ritz" is in many ways a metaphor for the New Russia. Built at a cost of $350 million by Kazakh and Turkish investors, it is probably one of the most expensive hotels in the Ritz chain, with some rooms at $1,000 a night and a suite that goes for a cool $16,000. Under the able direction of a German general manager, it is staffed by hundreds of eager, young English-speaking Russians. The driveway in front is stuffed with shiny black Mercedes, Audis and BMWs that shuttle global executives and minor Russian oligarchs, along with their security contingents, around the traffic-choked city.

How to make billions in Russia

Lev Leviev didn't miss a beat. It was evident that his answer, ostensibly off the top of his hat during the interview, had been prepared in advance: "Seven billion dollars by year-end," he said confidently, and smiled. The question we had asked him, at the Davos economic conference in late January 2007, had been what his goal for Africa Israel (TASE: AFIL) , his main business arm, is.

The Moscow real estate market peaked last year

Construction in the Russian capital might be second to none in terms of profitability. A report issued in March 2007 by a high-end property developer working in Ostozhenka that was recently admitted to the London Stock Exchange shows that construction costs start from $1,300 per sq m

St. Petersburg real estate AGENCIES

Pulford Real Estate is a British real estate company with operations in both Moscow and St. Petersburg. Since 1993, expertise in the Russian real estate market has assisted clients ranging from multinational corporations to private individuals in all aspects of commercial and residential real estate.