Closer to nature: one in five Russians dream of countryside property

One in five Russians (19%) dream of living in the countryside, Sber subsidiary SberInsurance found after polling the inhabitants of cities with 500,000+ people each. In the first half of 2021, the proportion of those wishing to buy cottages increased by over 12% compared to the same stretch last year. Houses for permanent residence and land plots saw the metric up 34% and 31%, respectively.

Most of those considering buying a cottage live in Togliatti and Novokuznetsk (6% of residents), Novosibirsk, Saratov, Yaroslavl, Ulyanovsk and St. Petersburg (5% of the inhabitants). One in five households in Voronezh, Ryazan, Moscow and Lipetsk consider buying a countryside house. Land plots are mostly being considered in St. Petersburg (6%), Moscow (5%), Tyumen (4%), Yekaterinburg (4%) and Krasnodar (4%).

As for the price per square meter when buying dachas and country houses, Russians expect to spend an average of RUB 60,000. Muscovites are ready to pay more: RUB 158.2 thousand per square meter. High price expectations were also spotted in St. Petersburg (114,100 per meter), Vladivostok (105,600), Kazan (83,900), Krasnodar (83,300), Tyumen (83,300), Khabarovsk (83,300), Nizhny Novgorod (65,500), Yekaterinburg (63,300) and Novosibirsk (62,200).

The respondents who are not ready to buy suburban real estate often consider renting it. According to the survey, on average, houses are mostly rented for the summer: 61% of respondents said that. Twenty per cent of houses are rented for weekends or holidays, and 15% are long-term leases for permanent residence.

Countryside real estate tenants in Russia expect to pay an average of RUB 14,000 a month. In Moscow, the rental price is higher than the market average, standing at RUB 18,000 a month.

Denis Kuzmin, director of Protective Products and Services, Sberbank:

"According to the survey, choosing a dacha or country home for permanent residence, most potential tenants are interested in a pool (33%), a sauna (17%), and the general level of comfort and proximity to the city (14%). At the same time, only one in five said low rent was important. Tenants and country house owners all feel the need to protect property. In an unforeseen situation, it is an insurance policy that will protect you from unplanned expenses. For example, you can take out a Home Protection policy by SberInsurance, but specify the person whose property has been damaged as the beneficiary. This means that property owners as well as tenants can protect themselves."

Home Protection is an online policy builder letting users tailor an insurance policy customized to their needs with coverage of up to RUB 2.9 mn. You can insure apartments, including non-residential ones, homes, or summer cottages. A policy can be taken out at any SberBank branch, via the SberBank Online mobile app, or on the SberInsurance website in a couple of clicks. The app allows you to buy an insurance subscription for a term you really need, be it a month, a quarter, or a year. SberBank Online also lets you go through the entire loss settlement procedure, from filing a claim regarding your insured event to getting your compensation. Online claims are handled faster and take an average of five days to consider.

The CATI survey was conducted in August and September 2021 in 37 cities of Russia with 500,000+ people each.