The President started the meeting by saying that DOM.RF is a key element for achieving national development goals in such important area as the housing industry. There are many unresolved issues, but the fact is, for the first time in the entire history of tsarist, Soviet and modern-day Russia, the state can handle this task, at least in general.
Vitaly Mutko reported on the company’s financial results: in 2020, the company had almost 1.5 trillion rubles in assets. Since the company’s establishment in 2015, the revenue has increased almost eight times. Last year, the company made 26 billion rubles and the state received 14 billion in dividends. In total, the state has received 127 billion rubles in dividends over the years. The capital investment has been fully paid back. The company has invested around 2.5 trillion rubles in housing construction, including project financing, obligations and other mechanisms.
But the main task is to support Russian citizens and to maintain the demand for housing, primarily by supporting mortgages – subsidised mortgage, family mortgage, mortgage for buyers of housing in the Russian Far East. At least one million families have improved their living conditions thanks to these programmes alone. This being said, at least 40 percent of Russian citizens will not be able to take out a mortgage even at the lowest interest rate, according to Vitaly Mutko. These citizens can be helped by developing the support of housing rent. Some measures have already been taken, including a new programme focused on subsidising housing leases under private-public partnerships. In cooperation with the Government, regulations have been drafted on amending the law on private-public partnership.
Vitaly Mutko also reported on including dormant plots of land in housing projects, on issuing infrastructure bonds and providing infrastructure loans to real estate developers. He spoke about potential obstacles and how to deal with them. The General Director asked the President to support these proposals. Vladimir Putin promised to issue respective instructions to the Government and the Finance Ministry.
Vladimir Putin and Vitaly Mutko also discussed project financing and escrow accounts. The President stressed that the state must ensure that the funds invested in housing by private individuals are safe.
Vitaly Mutko also reported on the steps being taken by the Government to get rid of administrative barriers, to promote digitalisation of the industry, implement BIM technology, develop information systems for housing construction that show every building and can be used to monitor the entire process right through to completion. He said he hoped that the system would help speed up construction.
Construction of private houses was also discussed. Vitaly Mutko reported that, according to public opinion polls, 70 percent of families, or 40 million families, would like to live in a house. Currently, 18 million families have their own house. As of the end of the first six months of this year, the number of houses completed was for the first time higher than the number of completed blocks of flats. The President reminded the General Director that a series of decisions supporting this type of housing has already been made.
When asked about the amount of housing to be finished this year, Vitaly Mutko answered that his estimate was around 84 or 85 million square metres. However, ensuring stable construction rates requires having 120 million square metres in development. Currently, this indicator is around 98 or 99 million. But the measures earlier described by the General Director should help.