Mortgage for conception, rates for individual housing construction and rental housing — how to stabilise the situation on the real estate market?

Preferential mortgage for the promise to have a first child

The Russian government is considering a rather unusual project under the provisional name of mortgage conception, the moderator said during a press conference. According to the idea, childless young families who are only planning to have a child within two years will receive a preferential housing loan at 6%. The state will compensate the banks for the difference between the preferential and market rates.

The initiative has now been sent to the government's financial block for approval. It is planned that young couples will receive a benefit when receiving a mortgage, which will allow them to save millions of rubles when paying off the debt, and in return, a clause with an obligation to have a child will appear in the loan agreement.

The project implies that a childless borrower will receive a mortgage in the same form as parents of newborn children and pay 6%. If within two years the borrower presents a document confirming that he has become a parent, he, like all beneficiaries with children, simply retains the 6% rate.

At the same time, if the birth does not take place, the borrower's mortgage is recalculated to the current market rate. According to the authors of the project, the idea helps solve two problems at once — low demographics and unaffordable housing.

Idea — down the drain

The mortgage conception project became a topic for discussion at the press conference. It is noteworthy that all participants in the discussions unanimously criticized it.

A managing partner of the development company UNIKEY Aygul Yusupova agreed with her. She called the idea “very dubious” and “unethical”:

At the same time, Yusupova proposed another option: to issue preferential mortgages to families already expecting a child, and to leave a low interest rate in the event of a failed birth. “Only in this case is the law acceptable from an ethical point of view.”

Another disadvantage of the project was named by financial advisor, PhD in Economics Svetlana Petrova. She is sure that the initiative can play a cruel joke and work in the opposite direction:

Mortgage decline

After criticism of the project, conference participants questioned the very relevance of a mortgage as a tool for buying a home. In 2025, the share of instalment plans from developers that are offered to citizens for the purchase of real estate amounted to 64%, while the standard market mortgage at 30% per annum is only 3%, Yusupova said.

“Another 8% is the purchase of apartments for cash, 64% are instalment plans that we offer to our customers. In the coming year, instalments will be in trend in the real estate market,” she said.

Yusupova added that by the end of January, the volume of mortgage transactions, compared to January 2024, decreased by 71% in terms of the number of transactions and by 68% in terms of the amount — “developers cannot ignore this trend.”

The upcoming trend towards installments was also announced by Honorary Member of the Russian Guild of Realtors Konstantin Aprelev. According to him, it is becoming increasingly popular:

What's next?

Nevertheless, problems with housing affordability and demographics must be solved somehow. The speakers initiated several ideas. In particular, Razvorotneva proposed introducing the practice of housing leasing, in which part of the payments for the apartment is counted as future mortgage payments. According to her, such initiatives are already in effect in Europe.

“At some point, families will be able to buy out the apartment. Such forms are already being implemented in the Far East. We need to diversify both the methods of acquisition and support measures. One of the areas of diversification is individual housing construction: the rate is lower there, and square meters are cheaper. But there are risks there — until recently, equity holders were not protected in any way,” she explained.

Aprelev continued the topic of individual construction. In his opinion, the development of the individual housing construction market solves both problems at once:

“Another point that, in my opinion, best stimulates the birth rate is, of course, support for individual housing construction. Because the desire to have not one, not two, but three children arises only if you have space. In city apartments, it is extremely difficult to create this space for large families. Ideally, for a person to live well and fully develop, he needs a separate room. A special program is needed to stimulate the development of territories for individual housing construction in the vicinity of large and medium-sized cities with a population of up to 500,000 people. And in individual housing construction, the cost price of each square metre is lower.”

The speakers also expressed their opinions regarding further decisions of the Central Bank on the key rate. There were no heated discussions on this topic.

“I think that the key rate will remain unchanged, because, on the one hand, the Central Bank wants to fight inflation, and on the other hand, there is colossal pressure from politicians and businesses. Stagnation in the economy is growing, investment projects are being curtailed, and this is a threat to the future of the country. Therefore, the Central Bank will balance,” Razvorotneva believes.

Aprelev added that the situation is not as critical for raising the rate as the Central Bank previously thought:

“Inflation risks continue to grow. Today, the situation is not as bad as the Central Bank expected, so the political component may work, and, probably, the rate will be kept at the same level. The fact that there will be no reduction is even more likely.”

Only Yusupova suggested a possible insignificant increase in the rate. At the same time, she admitted that she agrees with her colleagues:

“I would like a reduction, but I think that it will remain at the same level or we will see a minor adjustment towards growth.”