In addition the leases are little secure

Even sophisticated Muscovites sometimes miss their plane. It must go three, even four hours in advance for Domodedovo airport located 40 kilometres from the city centre. Infrastructure are so badly adapted to a movement in exponential growth that be now in Moscow is the challenge. "There is a gulf between the new and encomiums transactions blooming throughout the city and the State of roads, the Metro and public spaces, said Oleg Baïevsky, Deputy Director of the Institute of the General plan of the city." Housing is now the most interesting market for investors and forecasts for 2020 are already reached while transportation at least ten years of delay. "The master plan designed in 1999 is the first of the post-Soviet era. Designed to attract private investment, he succeeded beyond all expectations, even though the cadastre is non-existent and that projects are sometimes on land without known owners. Cranes are the horizon and new buildings, sometimes strange architecture, arise at all street corners. If the city still has 40 of the built land and building, successive land privatization laws have allowed private companies to buy buildings for resale by apartments or plots of land to build.

On any young market, speculation is a trademark. Between developers first, and then between the purchasers who sell their homes before even their completion. "Considering that 40 of the new production is purchased by investors who do not live in their apartments or is clog tenants." "They manage them as actions", says Oleg Baïevsky. The result is a real housing crisis: new constructions are not accessible to most Muscovites, community-based apartments have virtually disappeared, but the former Park is in poor condition.

It does not fight against the market

This large Monopoly is not without consequences on the same form of the city. In the neighbourhood Ostozhenka, two not Kremlin, all old buildings were razed and replaced by stylish contemporary buildings, closed and guarded by some guards. In 1995, the architects-planners Ostarch Agency was tasked with developing the ground of this district. Alexandre Skokan and his associates had at heart to find ancient traces of the fragmented and "historic" density in the sector. Ten years later, the 350,000 expected square metres were multiplied under the pressure of "serious people", which is fortunate, well introduced with the Office of the land powers of the city. "At a time, there was always the tail and the mountains of gifts in the corridors", tells a good connoisseur of procedures.

Planners have nothing could do against the market: more than 850,000 square metres of housing are finally delivered or still under construction. Buildings are more senior, green spaces have disappeared and sometimes that a fire destroy conveniently a listed building. "Many of the apartments are empty, we know nothing of the sociology of the inhabitants, whether schools, public facilities and finally there is not" continues Alexandre Skokan. "We had everything set, nothing was respected, but it all goes well, noted with bitterness his partner Andrei Gnezdilov.". The rules change along the way and, after ten years, we still do not know how decisions are made. "In this district, the square metre price exceeds 15,000 euros for apartments of great standing in buildings equipped with services, paid cash more often because the system of credit to individuals is still poorly developed.

The rest of the city has not escaped to the surge in prices yet significantly slowed since the beginning of the year 2008. In ten years, Moscow has moved from a system administered without private property in a market comparable to European capitals such as Paris and London. Must be paid on average 4,000 euros m2 for housing, including to the periphery, in large bars built in the mid-1980s, antiquated but well served by public transport. Contemporary renovations to the so-called European standards prices oscillate between 10,000 and 15,000 euros per square metre. The most beautiful buildings sometimes exceed 50,000 euros per square metre. Residential rents have followed the same pattern: it takes 1,500 to 2,000 euros for a two-piece (of 70 m2), 3,000 for a room in downtown, a geographic notion of also extensible. "In addition, the leases are little secure." They are signed to a maximum of one year and nothing prevents owners increase the rates of 30 along the way, says an official of the Embassy of France. The apartments are often large and pleasant while buildings and common areas would rather flee. The administration of property is not a widespread trade here.

Uncertainty on major projects

This rapid and speculative development may have lived. If the financial crisis effect the cliff transactions between individuals or small landowners on the housing market, it could receive much more hard very large projects which are legion in the Russian capital. MIRAX Group, the promoter of the Tower of the Federation, nearly completed and soon the highest in Europe in the neighbourhood of Moscow City, announced that it has frozen 10 million meters square because interest rates: the Group was financed at a rate of 8.5 year, banks now demanding three times more.

Another proponent, Sistema-Hals, would have the intention to resell the projects of less than 30,000 square metres.

Moscow City, the new neighbourhood modelled on defence, thought early 1980s Moscow Planner Boris Thor and launched ten years later, could suffer from this downturn. The 4 million planned square metres are well advanced, several of the 16 towers built and some occupied, but infrastructure is not the height. Private actors such as the Russians Mirax, Capital Group, Russian Land, MosCityGroup, Turkish Enka or AFI Israelis clearly privileged profitable investment: apartments are sold up to 20,000 euros per metre square towers and tertiary rents reach 1,500 euros per square metre per year for class offices, 50 more than in the Paris Golden Triangle.

A subway line is well up to this new neighbourhood, but provided parking spaces should be tripled to meet the needs and links with the two airports will be not completed at least three years before. It is in this area that should be built the Russia Tower of 600 meters high, designed by Norman Foster, if investors do not dropping this project. An extension on more than 1,000 hectares and former industrial land known as the "big city" was also in cartons. It may have to wait the next real estate cycle. Unlike Moscow City for business and the rich businessmen, Big City is a true urban project, one of the largest in the world but these superlatives are common in Russia , residences, parks, public amenities and transit destined for the middle classes who precisely the most need.