The most expensive rental apartment in the Moscow market in 2010 was rented at US$ 40,000 a month, IntermarkSavills said in a press release. The apartment with a total area of 300 sq meters is located in an elite apartment block in the Ostozhenka neighborhood. "Among the apartment's distinctive features are high-quality renovation, unique interior design with exclusive furnishing and decoration with the use of only top-quality and most expensive materials," IntermarkSavills said. The apartment has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a sauna. 2010's most expensive rental apartment turned out to be way more expensive than the previous year's champion, for which the leaseholder paid US$ 30,000 a month. However, the monthly rent for the Ostozhenka apartment fell short of the pre-crisis record of US$ 42,500 a month — the rent for 2008's two most expensive rental apartments, also located in Ostozhenka.
There are no objective reasons for either rapid increase or decrease of prices in the Moscow real estate market, MIAN's analytical service said in a report. "Prices for the city's property are most likely to go up moderately, depending upon how successful this year is going to be for Russia's economy," reads the report. According to MIAN, the population's financial situation is likely to remain a crucial factor for real estate prices. MIAN forecasts that in 2011, prices for residential property could gain between 10 per cent and 15 per cent.
According to MIAN, the increase in prices in the secondary market is likely to lag behind that in the new construction segment, while the number of apartments put up for sale in the city and oblast could reach 45,000 to 50,000 this spring, which would repeat an all-time high.
Russia's Ministry for Regional Development is to introduce new requirements for the energy efficiency of buildings within the next six months, Alexei Tulikov, head of Energy Legislation Development at the Russian Energy Agency, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti. "The main task is not to make the existing requirements stricter but to make them more detailed", he explained. According to Tulikov, a good example of an energy-efficient building is one constructed in Moscow oblast with the participation of the company Rockwool, in which energy consumption was decreased by 60 per cent. Another example is Ducat Place II, a smart 30,000 sq meter office building project managed by Hines, which opened in 2007. The building was awarded the BREAAM rating of 'very good' in December 2010. Under the Russian government's plans, energy consumption of buildings in the country should decrease at least by 15 per cent by 2015 and by 30 per cent by 2020.
Armani S.p.A., owned by Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, has denied earlier reports about plans to build an elite hotel in Stavropolsky Krai in southern Russia. The news was broken by Russian media and later spread to international publications, prompting Armani to deny the information that a project similar to Armani Hotel, opened a year ago in Dubai, would be implemented in the Mineralnye Vody region. Domestic experts, commenting on the original reports, pointed out that for a hotel of that kind to break even, the price of a room would have to be about $2,000 per night, which is an exorbitant sum for the region dominated by domestic holiday- makers.