The article is devoted to the issue of housing affordability on the Russian market. Based on official statistics, the authors reveal the main trends of the regional housing market development. The article reviews government priorities in the housing policy and presents calculations of the housing affordability index in the Vologda Oblast according to several scenarios. The authors present the results of the ISEDT RAS population survey conducted in the Vologda Oblast concerning the level of people’s satisfaction with their housing conditions. The results indicate that only 37% of the population are satisfied with their housing, 13% – rated their living conditions as bad. The authors research best practices of a number of constituent entities of the Russian Federation in order to address the shortage, quality and affordability of housing. Numerous studies by Russian scientists indicate the necessity of forming and introducing new tools and mechanisms to improve housing affordability in the Russian practice. The researchers emphasize that overcoming the problems of the housing sector cannot be solved solely at the expense of budget or household funds. In this regard, the purpose for this paper is to study the mechanism of housing construction savings implying the pooling of resources of all stakeholders (public funds, household funds and funds of the banking system). The article discusses the practice of its functioning in Krasnodar Krai and the Republic of Bashkortostan. It has been calculated that at the initial stage of introducing housing construction savings in the Vologda oblast, 3489 of Vologda citizens will be able to participate; they will pay a monthly fee of 3.6–7.2 thousand rubles to the bank to accumulate down payment on the mortgage. The implementation of the program will require additional costs of the consolidated budget of the Vologda Oblast worth 51–74 million rubles, which amounts to 0.9–0.13% of own revenues. The article can be used by research associates as a framework for further research; and by management bodies in making administrative decisions and in the process of training bachelor, Ph.D., and post-graduate students
Keywords
mortgage loan, housing construction savings, saving and loan program, housing savings bank, increasing housing affordability, saving and loan tools, public mortgage