Russian housing construction fell by 14% year on year in January–August 2026, while individual housebuilding declined by 23.5%, according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta’s report of 23 September.
The figures measure different parts of the market: the 14% decline covers housing construction overall, whereas the larger fall concerns individual homes. They should not be treated as interchangeable estimates.
The newspaper quoted Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin on high interest rates and difficulties obtaining mortgages, particularly for individual construction projects. Those explanations were attributed to the official rather than presented as a complete statistical breakdown of the decline.
Housing completed during the whole of 2025 totalled 108.1 million square metres, a rise of 0.3% on 2024. That annual figure covers a different period from the first eight months of 2026.
Authorities discussed making more land available and simplifying allocation procedures. Those proposals are not evidence that a recovery has already begun, and the reported figures do not establish the final outcome for the full year.
AI-generated contextual image; not a documentary photograph of a specific construction site.
