At present, there are ten or even twelve privileged population groups entitled to free housing. The new code leaves only one group-the poorest. Poverty level standards will be up to every particular part of the country.
A low-income household that eventually gets prosperous will not have to vacate its flat received gratis-it will merely make major repairs at its own expense, reassures a ministry spokesman.
4.4 million households are presently waiting for free accommodations all over Russia. Of these, ministerial experts qualify two million as low-income. Recent years saw no progress to speak of-people have been waiting for seventeen to twenty years.
The Housing Code is not retroactive, so all who have applied for free housing before it enters into force will retain their claims valid. The ministerial officer made special stress on that point.
Ministry experts expect many people to prefer other ways of improving their housing conditions. If local administrations take up 30 per sent or so of purchase costs on themselves, private persons will be willing to pay the rest out of their own purse, show the latest opinion probes.
Non-privatised housing total floor space is roughly estimated at 650 million square metres for today. The draft code envisages free housing privatisation eventually abolished-but not before two years after the code enters into force.
The ministry has serious objections to free privatisation. If it does not stop, social housing, which the new code introduces for low-income people, will become pointless. Then, free privatisation makes men of property out of persons who cannot afford proper housing maintenance.
Our informant does not think Moscow housing prices will go down before next year's end.
"There is still elbowroom for a price increase, and we expect a slump in eighteen months or so," a ministerial functionary said to Novosti. That will be only a recess-the housing market will by no means enter a crisis, he stressed.
At present, 61 per cent of Russian residents are anxious to improve their housing. That is why prices are skyrocketing. They came 26 per cent up, on a national average, last year-and 45 per cent in Moscow. Resale market price growth rates have come quite close to new housing.
Many experts are apprehensive about Moscow housing prices plummeting. They expect the tentative slump to have a bad effect on the entire national economy. Our interviewee is of a contrasting opinion. The 1998 finance crisis will not be re-enacted even if housing prices come disastrously down. That prospect is ruled out, he said with profound conviction.
