European investors set to re-enter Russia on price decline, says C&W

International investors have started to re-enter the Russian property market as a result of a sharp price decline across all property sectors, according to Sergey Riabokobylko, joint head of C&W in Russia. Riabokobylko told PropertyEU that the country is seeing more activity in particular from European investors since the beginning of the year.

The number of forced sales and distressed properties is increasing in the country as developers, in particular those who focused on large speculative projects, struggle to keep their business afloat, he said. 'We could say that all of the projects in the country are up for sale right now,' Riabokobylko said.

While development pipelines have increased rapidly over the past years, almost all of the large projects have been stopped recently, including all the new towers in Moscow's business district. Despite liquidity problems, there is however political pressure on developers to complete at least the shell of the buildings.