More houses commissioned in Baku

/By Azernews/

By Fatma Babayeva

The real estate market has revitalized in Azerbaijan in January to February as its housing segment demonstrated traditional activity for spring season.

The forecasts on possible rise in the housing prices in the long-term are regarded as one of major factors for increased activities on the market. Now the prices are comparably lower than the previous months, triggering demand for purchase of houses.

An extraordinary activity on the secondary housing market was recorded in Baku in February on the background of a significant decline in property prices forecasted by real estate experts for the spring-summer period.

The total area of new ??housing commissioned in Azerbaijan in January-February amounted to 269,500 square meters, which is by 2.5 percent more compared to the same period of the last year, the State Statistics Committee told Interfax-Azerbaijan agency.

In February, 155,800 square meters of new housing were commissioned in Azerbaijan.

The committee said that 101.3 million manats (decline to 36.5 percent) were invested in housing sector during January-February 2016.

Real estate experts forecast a decline in property prices for this spring-summer period. Although some experts believe that real estate prices have already tumbled, the others say the prices will further decrease until late 2016 associating this with the market stagnation by force of external and internal factors -- worldwide economic instability, as well as fluctuations of national currency.

An average period of object staying in the real estate market amounted to 180 days in February. This figure is four percent less than in January 2016, well demonstrating the increased activity on the secondary housing market. Increase in the number of buyers, in turn, has led to an increase of the market operations by eight percent.

Experts also believe that demolition of old buildings, which was recently announced by the country’s authorities, will affect the real estate market.

The Emergency Ministry has recently declared that a construction company should demolish old buildings and construct another instead. This solution will give an impetus to revitalization of construction firms’ activities, experts believe.

According to the activity coefficient, Nasimi, Yasamal and Narimanov districts are the most attractive areas in Baku.