Useful information and advice about purchasing real estate in Russia

• In Russia, the information from real estate databases or private advertisements often contains unchecked and/or unauthenticated data. For example, an agent may put an apartment into a public listing based only on 1 phone call from a seller.
• The advertised property is not ready for a quick transaction usually due a number of reasons including:
  - Necessary title documents are not ready
  - Legal problems associated with the particular property may not be resolved
  - The transaction may be rather complex (see section below on communal apartments)
  
• There are up to 500 registered real estate agencies, approximately 100 building companies with their own sale divisions and many freelance middlemen working on the St. Petersburg market. Every agency has its own small base of properties for sale. There is a tendency for the agencies to put the interests of the seller ahead of the buyer due to commission arrangements.
• It is highly probably that more than 1 agency will be involved in a transaction. There will be an agency representing the seller, usually one representing the buyer and if the seller requires not only cash, but property as well to complete the deal, there may be a 3rd agency involved - the representative of the property that the seller is interested in.
• There are no standard rules for Russian real estate agencies. Every agency has its own set of standard service agreements for the buyer to sign. Few agencies have English speaking specialists and few will offer contracts and other documents in languages other than Russian.
• Russian real estate agencies rarely divide commissions between agencies representing the seller and the buyer for property transactions.
• There are some additional property rights for Russian citizens such as "an individual's local residency registration" (propiska). In other words, a person may have the right to occupy a property without actually owning the property.
• There are many communal apartments in the city. Communal apartments are single apartments with a number of co-owners and/or occupants, each of them has a special right to occupy their own, separate rooms.(see section on communal apartments)
• Mortgage programs are not well developed at present. In 80% of real estate transactions, the owner (seller) cannot move into another apartment until he sells his own apartment. Usually this person does not have a place to live between the two transactions, therefore, he will already require a place to move into on the day that the title passes from the seller to buyer. This type of transaction is called a vstrechnaya pokupka (purchase where 2 ends meet). If a buyer would like to purchase a communal apartment, all or most of the owners usually require other property in order to agree to move out of their current apartment, this type of very complex transaction is called a rasselenie (a move out).