Audit Chamber suggests no cheap mortgage for 1-bedroom flats

MOSCOW, Jul 1 (PRIME) -- The Audit Chamber has suggested that the government exclude 1-bedroom apartments from all state cheap mortgage programs, Auditor Natalya Trunova told PRIME on Friday.

“The Audit Chamber suggests exclusion of studio and 1-bedroom apartments from all programs with state support as the government should not support demand for low-comfortable housing and increase supply of these types of housing. In many cases of a family buying 1-bedroom apartment through the state-supported mortgage, it becomes impossible for the family to improve their living conditions later,” she said.

The state programs should support improvement of housing conditions with each member of a family having one bedroom, while support of loans for the purchase of 1-bedroom apartments only increases the share of these apartments on the market, she said.

She also said that the Russian housing construction industry is suffering from the problem of imported materials and the difficulty of imports substitution. Russia produces about 90% of construction materials used by the industry, but machines and equipment are mainly imported.

“There are problems with imports of central heating boilers, pumps, conditioners, cranes, elevators, escalators, hand tools, bulldozers, and other construction equipment,” she said, adding that the quality of housing construction may worsen because of that.

The current economic conditions may make some real estate developers unable to cope with problems, she said.

End