OREANDA-NEWS. April 25, 2014. Sviaz-Bank (Vnesheconombank Group) has launched a new mortgage lending product for the purchase of residential property at an early stage of construction. The Morton Group of Companies, one of the biggest companies in the real property market, has become the Bank’s first partner in new product promotion.

Cooperation between the two partners will enable customers to purchase apartments in the Butovo East neighborhood (Buildings 32 and 33) at an early stage of construction by taking out mortgages from Sviaz-Bank.

Sviaz-Bank charges an interest under its Uncollateralized New Home program at a rate of up from 11.4% per annum in rubles while the property is still under construction and up from 10.7% per annum in rubles upon completion of construction. The interest rates it charges under its Military Mortgage program are up from 11.3% and 10.5%, respectively.

In the words of Olga Oleinik, Vice Chair of Sviaz-Bank’s Management Board, the proportion of transactions the Bank is closing on the primary market is growing steadily: “Since early this year, we have registered an increase in the number of applications filed for mortgages, in particular, for new home purchases. This is a singular segment of our customers – higher school graduates and young families who are ready to make minimum down payments for apartment purchases in houses under construction. Often enough, real estate, still no more than a foundation pit, draws more applications than it does at the final construction stage because of the difference in prices of a square meter. Some 50% to 60% of real property sells at the starting stage, before a second floor is built. We just cannot ignore this reality.”

“Property buyers now have a fine opportunity to take out mortgages from Sviaz-Bank and buy comfortable apartments in the Butovo East project. I think this is one of the best bargains in the property market because the early stage of construction pushes housing prices down to the lowest possible level and because the mortgage interest under the Uncollateralized New Home program is up from 11.4%, almost 1% below the market average,” says Alena Antsyshkina, Director of the Mortgages and Subsidies Department, Morton Group of Companies.

Property buyers are now offered a unique chance to purchase apartments in the Butovo East project at reasonably low prices because prices are likely to go up by at least 30% at later construction stages. The funds they save in this way can be used, for example, to redecorate an apartment or buy furnishings for it.

The neighborhood of a total residential area of 613,000 square meters is situated in an environmentally friendly area of the Butovo Forest Park at Site 2, Bulatnikovskoye rural neighborhood, near Bobrovo village, Buildings 32 and 33, Leninsky district, Moscow Region. The project comprises 37 bearing wall and mixed concrete block and brick wall houses to be put up under a customized project, together with two schools, two childcare centers, a multifunctional complex, and a cultural and business center. Butovo East is within easy reach by road, and will be joined in the future to the Moscow underground railroad by a new-generation overland Strela transportation system. Residential space sells at 64,500 rubles a square meter.