Market Overview

The growth in real GDP in Ukraine, the decrease in unemployment and higher disposable incomes have contributed to greater demand for properties and higher real estate values and rental rates. The real estate market of Ukraine is in an early growth stage and demand remains high across all segments—residential, commercial and retail — while supply is limited. Kyiv, as the capital city, remains the country’s most attractive real estate market. However, developers are beginning to recognise opportunities in other regions of Ukraine.
 

Property appreciation patterns 

Property appreciation began in the early 1990s after Ukraine's economy hit bottom and has been most pronounced in Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnepropetrovsk and other large cities. Soon afterwards prices in resort areas of Crimea began climbing, and now real estate prices in Yalta are often even higher than in Ukraine's capital Kiev. There are very few places in Ukraine where no price action has occured since the post-Soviet economic collapse, but in general property prices in villages and small towns around Ukraine remain very low.

Property values show no sign of halting their growth, and real estate analysts generally agree that the fundamental causes of the growth in prices in Ukrainian cities will continue to push up prices for several more years at the least.
 

Causes of Ukraine's real estate boom

Among the causes of the rise in price of real-estate in Ukraine are the following:

• low levels of housing per capita in Soviet times;
• Soviet system kept people from moving to big cities, but now they are allowed to opportunities and capital concentrated in big cities;
• rising income levels in cities and resort areas;
• lack of investment alternatives;
• mistrust of banks after losing life savings during the inflation and banking crisis of the early 1990s;
• increasing accessibility of bank loans and mortgages.

This boom has occured in spite of very high interest rates. When these rates finally lower, demand for real estate will likely rise further.