The year 2022 was a record year for Russia in terms of the volume of housing commissioned: out of 102.7 million m2, more than half is private housing construction. This means that 57.2 million m2 of housing was built in the low-rise construction segment in 2022. Along with the growth of the residential housing market, the share of wooden housing construction is also increasing. Evgeny Avdeev, Sales Director of the TECHNONICOL "Wood" department, tells about the current state of the wood market and what prospects it has in the future.
Features of residential housing in Russia
Private housing construction in Russia is one of the key drivers of the market. At the same time, it should be understood that the housing, unlike the segment of industrial construction, exists practically by itself. The lack of regulatory control, a thoughtful approach to design — all this gives the industry a spontaneous character. We should add that the level of training of contractors employed in the segment often leaves much to be desired. This was the private housing construction in the 90s. Echoes of this heritage are chaotic buildings, country houses unsuitable for year—round living.
In recent years, the market has been experiencing a new round of development. Quality requirements are growing, organized settlements appear around large cities, infrastructure is developing. The key criterion now is not price, but comfort, safety and energy efficiency. There are practically no offers of cheap summer buildings at specialized exhibitions today. The pandemic gave a powerful impetus to the housing and communal services, when life outside the city became almost the only opportunity to maintain comfort and safety. Taken together, this gives grounds to consider low-rise construction as a market with long-term prospects, but with a low degree of readiness.
Wooden house construction yesterday, today, tomorrow
Russia is currently experiencing a boom in interest in suburban real estate in general. Globally, four factors contribute to this.
The first is a pandemic. We have seen a mass exodus of people from cities to private houses. For many, moving has become a key opportunity to protect themselves and their family. The pandemic is officially over, and interest in wooden housing has remained. This is due to historical traditions: people have always wanted to live in their own house, so many citizens have now decided to acquire suburban real estate.
The second factor is a change in the structure of consumption. Representatives of the older generation have always built houses of a large area and used more expensive building materials, because they wanted to leave their homes to their children and grandchildren. Young families approach this differently: they rationally choose construction technologies, the area of the house needed here and now, without a reserve for the future.
The third important factor is related to the cost of urban real estate, which (especially in large cities) is growing. In many regions, home construction is now more affordable.
The fourth factor is related to state support. There are partial subsidy programs. Wooden house construction is considered as a way of settling emergency housing: for 2023-2024, about 20 billion rubles have been allocated for these purposes. More recently, financing programs with the help of escrow accounts have appeared. Such initiatives give market participants confidence that the segment will develop.
Mortgage programs for individual housing construction are a separate line in the list of support measures. If at the beginning of the pandemic, banks practically did not offer lending programs in residential housing, now almost all major banks in the portfolio have such loan offers. In just 3 months of 2023, loans for residential housing were issued in the amount of 47 billion rubles, 71% of them were issued by young families.
Along with the interest in suburban real estate, the volume of commissioning of houses using wooden structures is also increasing. In 2022, compared to 2021, it grew by 31% and amounted to 14.2 million square meters. m. And this is just the beginning. Russia is a world leader in forest reserves. Historically, our country has always built housing out of wood. At the same time, today only 13.8% of private housing construction in Russia accounts for wooden houses. If we look at world practice, the share of wooden houses in the USA is 67%, in Japan — 45%, in Finland — 40%.
One of the most popular technologies of wooden house construction in Russia remains the frame, the popularity of which increased from 45% to 67% last year. At the same time, in 2022, compared with 2021, due to the high cost of technology, construction from the array decreased from 55% to 34%. There was a slight increase in the glued wood segment: from 10% to 13%.
The demand for new technologies is also growing, which is a sure sign of the development of the industry. CLT and MHM technologies have been added to the previously known frame, glued timber, SIP. Prefab technologies will become the driver of wooden housing construction: the production of house kits according to standard projects. This solution allows you to build a house from scratch in less than a month. This means that wooden house construction is not only a way to solve the housing issue, but also an important element of the development of the tourism business. Campsites, recreation centers using prefab technologies can be prepared in the shortest possible time.
The industry players face an important task — to increase the transparency and efficiency of the market. To do this, it is important to consolidate the industry, establish cooperation with designers, architects and contractors. Working with the latter is especially important, since it depends on the contractor how the house will be built, with what technology, with what quality, for what period of operation, how the construction stages will be observed.
In this sense, all of us — both business and consumers — are interested in the growth of the number of professional personnel. This is the only way we will be able to improve the quality of construction, increase the speed of introduction of new technologies, and therefore contribute to the growth of the volume of housing being commissioned.
