OREANDA-NEWS. May 06, 2010. Apartment sales in Moscow in April were 18% higher than in April 2008 and 66% higher than in April 2009. Apart from that the number of mortgage deals was 1,800, five times higher than in April 2009, and 30% higher than in April 2008, reported the press-centre of OTKRITIE Financial Corporation.

View: We regard this as a positive sign of recovery in the housing market, although one of the main drivers of increased number of transactions is pent-up demand. Once the differed demand saturates later during the year we will see a more normalized level of housing sales. The pick-up of demand is positive for residential developers such as LSR [N/R] and PIK [N/R].