The most expensive apartments in the city are purchased according to…. a silence law
It seems that the time of an overall deficit is in the past: come to any store and choose whatever you want. The main thing is to have enough money. But it turns out far from easy. For example to buy a really elite apartment in the “Golden triangle” (an area bounded by Nevsky prospect and Fontanka and Neva rivers embankments) is rather difficult even if you have a few extra millions. The reason is that the elite housing market has completely different laws from those of the standard housing market. Director of NEVSKY PROSTOR AGENCY Alexander Ginovker, a vice-president of Real Estate Association of Saint-Petersburg, will tell us about them.
- You mean a buyer with unlimited funds might face difficulties with purchasing elite housing in our city, don’t you?
- Yes, I do. If it concerns really elite housing. Step by step such apartments passed from the rank of expensive ones to the rank of rarities. The matter is that an apartment designed by a famous architect of XVIII-XIX centuries can never be constructed again. An up-to-date conventionalized concrete building will always remain a bad imitation of antiquity. Is is practically impossible to imitate the style of old Petersburg apartments. They possess a special aura.
- Being a rarity, such property can not be sold according to the ordinary market rules. All is done within a narrow circle. There exist a peculiar private auction. So properties rarely appear on the open market, and are listed in catalogues in exceptional cases only.
- I am not going to argue with professionals, but not long ago in an ordinary periodical I came across an advertisement for such an apartment.
Throw it away and forget it!
- But why? You just told that it is very difficult to find a good apartment in this area, and according to the advertisement I found, the listed one is not bad at all. If only I had an extra million dollars…
- Would you like to have a look at this very apartment? First, let’s check the address not to waste your time. Here it is. It has been for sale since December. And has not been sold yet. Do you know why? None of reasonable people, and millionaires are all like that, will buy it even for a half asking price.
- Last year in November we were offered that apartment for 900 thousand dollars. But we could not recommend it to our customers because instead of the apartment they would buy a headache. As we know, during the consolidation of the apartment illegal methods were used. To unravel the whole matter, a few years of court examinations resulting in considerble expenses will be needed.
- If everybody knows it, why is such a “bounty” put for sale?
- Firstly, not everybody but only professionals dealing in elite housing are aware of it. Secondly, such problem apartments are always surrounded by crowds of middlemen: why not receive a freebie 20-30-thousand-dollar commission. Those middlemen are real troublemakers. Using their connections, they like clingfish stick to practically every decent apartment and are ready to recommend it friendly to anybody. It is clear that they do not care at all about correctness or legal reliability of the deal. Their main point is that there might always appear a big-money-buyer who will purchase the apartment without viewing or on a “friend’s” advice.
- I hope not all elite apartments for sale have a knotty acquisition history or legal problems.
- Of course not. But even with our experience a few months are needed to check thoroughly everything and carry out legal clearance if necessary. And only after that such apartment can be put for sale but not through a common catalogue.
Source "Saint-Petersburg Vedomosti"
27 October 2005
