Mortgage lending for new real estate in St. Petersburg plummeted to a six-year low in the first five months of 2025, while the supply of new properties is outpacing last year’s figures.

Between January and May 2025, a total of 5,200 mortgage transactions involving new real estate were recorded in St. Petersburg.

This represents a 2.6-fold decrease compared to the same period in the previous year.

Despite the significant drop in mortgage activity, sales in the primary market experienced a smaller decline, decreasing by one and a half times in both units and square meters.

Specifically, 11,400 apartments, totaling 455,000 sq. m, were sold during this period.

The proportion of mortgage purchases relative to the total sales volume of new residential real estate in St. Petersburg fell to 44% between January and May.

Sergei Sofronov, Commercial Director of PSK Group, noted that this mortgage share is the lowest in the past six years, even lower than the 49% recorded in 2019.

Family mortgages now constitute 99% of the total, marking a historically high percentage.

An expansion of the family mortgage program could potentially boost the share of loans to 70-75% by the end of the year, but this outcome hinges on government subsidies and the key rate size.

As of the end of May 2025, the supply of apartments and apart-hotels in new buildings in St. Petersburg totaled 1.7 million sq. m.

The volume of supply has decreased by 200,000 sq. m over the past year.

Developers’ caution in the face of new mortgage conditions and high project financing rates has contributed to the smaller sales volumes observed in 2024.

The current supply largely consists of “last year’s reserves,” maintaining a stable share of 90% compared to the end of the previous year.