Surge in property buying by Russian citizens in Saimaa region

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The number of real estate transactions is growing sharply in the Saimaa region. Last year nearly one in three euros came from Russia in connection with the sales of lakefront properties in Southern Karelia and Southern Savo, while one in five shoreline plots were sold to foreigners.
      The information is based on the preliminary statistics on the property transactions in the Saimaa region collected by the National Land Survey of Finland.
      While the data does not of itself include the nationality of the foreign buyers, closer examination indicates that more than 90 per cent of the foreigners were Russian citizens, reports Juhani Väänänen from the National Land Survey of Finland.
     
Over the period from 2005 to 2007, there was a tenfold increase in the total sales of shoreline plots and summer cottages to Russian buyers, growing from less than EUR 4 million to EUR 40 million.
      Typically, the best and most expensive properties end up in Russian hands. While Finns mostly buy cottages worth around EUR 80,000, foreigners are looking for well-equipped villas that carry a price-tag of more than EUR 250,000.
      Building engineer Tapio Nevalainen has put on the market a shorefront house in Lappeenranta, with an asking price of EUR 830,000. He says that most of the prospective buyers have come from the other side of the eastern border.
      "I would rather sell to a Finn, but eventually money talks", Nevalainen notes.
     
The great interest shown by Russian customers is bound to increase the prices of prime properties in particular, as there are more buyers on the market, says Managing Director Anita Mouhu from the real estate agency Kiinteistömaailma in Savonlinna.
     
Bonvesta, the real estate company selling plots owned by UPM-Kymmene, also estimates that some 20 to 30 per cent of their parcels of land in Eastern Finland are sold to buyers coming from across the eastern border.
      Moreover, a Russian customer can sometimes buy a combination of adjoining four to five plots in order to ensure that nobody can disturb him or her while staying there.
      "All good plots in Southeastern Finland have been sold out very fast", says Matti Hyytinen from Bonvesta.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Rouble investors keeping step with growing tourist trade from the east (29.7.2007)

Links:
  National Land Survey of Finland

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