Do not rush to exult, seeing the New Year discounts and promotions on apartments. A lot of pitfalls lurk in enticing offers. In advertising for new buildings, there are announcements about New Year’s Eve promotions: “the price is FROM N thousands of rubles”. And the figure there is very attractive, clearly below the market. Really lucky, have you finally found an apartment of your dreams? A gift from the developer for the upcoming New Year? Do not rush to rejoice.
Very cheap meter
Here, for example, is a line from an advertising photo block from a Moscow-based developer: “A very favorable price of 50 thousand rubles / sq. m. Our apartments are the brightest. Interest-free installment. Call! ”
You joyfully estimate that soon you will buy the “odnushka” of 40 square meters, multiply one by the other and think that you need two million rubles. How wrong! In fact, “your” apartment will cost two and a half millions. In general, the difference between the advertising and the true price of a meter can differ several times because sellers of real estate in advertisements mentioned the price of a meter for the largest apartment, 4 – 5-room. This is the law of the market: the more an apartment, the cheaper its price per meter. And the most expensive meter – in “odnushka” or studio, that is, in the smallest area of housing.
If the buyer sees that the developer promises housing from N thousand rubles per square meter, then he can safely multiply this number by 100 – the average area of a large apartment, and then he will understand the approximate prices in the project.
Another, even more common trick is to indicate in the advertisement the price of an apartment, but also the minimum “From”. For example, the ad would say: “Apartment from 1.5 million rubles. Underground parking. Near the park and the subway”. In fact, it turns out that in the building there is only one apartment which corresponds to the declared price and it is a studio of 22 square meters on the first floor. And the prices for the 1 room apartment that you need will start at 3+ millions of rubles.
Add 15 percent
Usually the cost of the largest or smallest apartments are advertised, although the demand is in the middle. Indeed, the majority of consumers are interested in apartments with compact, but not microscopic square footage, comfortable rational planning, with a pleasant view from the window and not on the extreme floors. The most popular apartments are the two-room.
What a big discount hides
Not all developers have announced their New Year discounts yet, but the average New Year’s Eve discount this season is 7-10%. Maximum is 15% off. What if they offer more – say, from 20% off? Behind the big discount there may be an urgent need to speed up sales in a project that sells poorly and is hardly built due to lack of funds. Buyers take a risk – funds may not be collected; and usually objects are poorly sold for some reason: difficulties with transport accessibility or some other pitfalls.
Another discount trick. Sometimes developers in promotional materials operate on the size of the discount not in a percentage of the apartment price, but in the amount of money.
For example, it is proposed to purchase an apartment with a savings of one million rubles. Such a big discount, of course, attracts the attention, but then it turns out that this is a 10% discount, which is available for the only one in the project penthouse with the corresponding price.
