Regional Differentiation of Buyers’ Activity in the Primary Housing Market of the Moscow Agglomeration

Abstract

The regional differentiation of buyers’ activity in the primary market of the Moscow agglomeration (MA) is analyzed based on address data of the buyers’ initial registration. Acquisition of real estate by nonresident buyers (17% of transactions in Moscow and 23% in Moscow oblast) provides housing for about 100000 people per year, or 40% of the net migration inflow. The factor of the agglomeration economies gives leadership to buyers from St. Petersburg, and the factor of natural resource rent produces a high share of buyers from the Khanty–Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrugs (6.4% vs 1.6% of population), making their residents purchase real estate in Moscow under a low level of migration to the Moscow metropolitan area (MMA). Most nonresident buyers come from regions of the Russian provincial areas and earn the money to buy their housing in the labor market of the MMA. The distance factor makes the share of buyers from first-order neighboring regions of the MMA 2.1 times higher than their share in the population in Moscow and 2.5 times higher than in Moscow oblast.