What can you buy for $50,000, for $500,000 in Kyiv?

Ukraine’s gross domestic product grew by 3 percent in 2018, and part of that growth was due to a recovery of the real estate market.

Building companies, real estate agents and other market participants have in fact been reaping benefits of the country’s emergence from economic turmoil for quite a while, as Ukrainians favor saving value in tangible assets such as apartments over any other form of savings.

Here’s a look at what Ukraine’s recovering real estate market has to offer today:

Booming industry

Most Ukrainian markets harbor some apprehension about 2019, considering presidential elections are to be held in March and parliamentary elections are scheduled for the fall. However, real estate is something of an exception.

Oksana Holoborodko of Ukrbud, Kyiv’s biggest state-owned developer, is even looking to 2019 with some optimism: “In the last seven years we’ve survived a revolution and a war. Any election outcome can have an influence, but it won’t knock the construction industry back.”

Kyiv’s residential real estate is generating interest among Ukrainians and foreigners alike. “The economic situation is becoming stable, investments are reliable, and the returns on investments are higher than those in Western bank accounts,” Holoborodko says.

The used apartment market has also “gotten really active since last year,” confirms Lora Kim from All Star Kiev Realty real estate agency, which specializes in Kyiv’s downtown residential market.

Half a million to spend

For those in the market for a classic, quality residence in the center who have a budget of $500,000 to invest in Kyiv, Tim Louzonis of AIM Realty suggests buying a four-to-five-bedroom flat in a building at least 100 years old. It should be located in a safe, quiet area adjacent to an embassy, and be well suited for families or for renting out. Renting the apartment out will bring an investor an annual yield of 10–14 percent, Louzonis says.

To buy a new flat for that amount, Ukrbud can offer one of its most expensive properties — a 260-square-meter duplex apartment with a terrace overlooking the Dnipro River. The apartment is in the picturesque Podil neighborhood in close proximity to the river.

Kim says quality real estate in Kyiv comes either in the form of residential houses built before the Soviet era, or in buildings constructed after 2005 — when Soviet building standards were replaced with more modern ones. Such buildings have “good elevators, concierges, high ceilings — which is radically different from Soviet-era accommodation.”

For $500,000, Kyiv also offers a few single-family houses, ideal for comfortable living, according to the director of the Blagovist real estate agency, Olena Biberova

For example, a 460-square-meter house in the centrally located Zverinetska Street in Pechersk district stands on a small land plot of 0.06 hectares and is ready for new owners to move in right away.

Further away from the center there is a 370-square-meter house on Kvitky Osnovyanenka Street, close to Holosiyivsky park. The house has the same price tag, and will give you a suburban living feel, while also offering the advantages of city infrastructure.

$100,000

For tighter budgets, Kyiv offers a range of options, even within the city center.

Ukrbud is offering 75-square-meter one-bedroom flats in a residential complex on the centrally located Zlatoustivska Street for around $100,000. These flats will be available to move into by the end of 2019. It is also selling 85-square-meter apartments in the same residential complex for those who can wait until 2020 when construction work is complete

One can also buy apartments in older buildings in the city center for $100,000 “but the renovation costs will be high,” Louzonis says. And this will probably be a smaller flat of 50–60 square meters, with renovation costs starting at about $400 per square meter.

Kim says that if you want a flat for this price in downtown Kyiv “it will probably be in a house without an elevator, on the first or on the top floor, and maybe in a house built in the 1970s.”

But she adds that convenient living in Kyiv is not limited just to the city center: “You can live comfortably in districts with good transport infrastructure (further away from downtown) where there are reasonably priced flats.”

For example, for $100,000 one could buy a new 120-square-meter two-bedroom apartment with a spacious kitchen and dining area in a district outside the center. Ukrbud, for instance, offers such apartments close to Vasylkivska metro station. Alternatively, one could buy a 115-square-meter three-bedroom flat close to Osokorky metro station from Kyivmiskbud, another major state-owned real estate construction enterprise.

There are also houses on sale for $100,000, such as the 100-square-meter houses on sale in the Osokorky neighborhood close to Slavutych metro station. Their land plots range from 0.1 to 0.2 hectares in area. However, there are no schools in the neighborhood, with the closest ones being a 15-minute bus trip away.

$50,000

At present in Kyiv it is also possible to find properties in all three markets — one-family houses, new and older flats — for $50,000 — but not in the city center, and the quality won’t be great.

For example, Ukrbud is offering studios of about 50 square meters close to the city center or a metro station within this price range. The same amount also buys a 70-square-meter one-bedroom flat close to a metro station further away from the city center, for example at Vasylkivska metro station.

There are also older one-bedroom flats available on Tatarska Street in a nine-story brick building. The building is in good condition and requires no renovation. Blagovist is also offering two-bedroom flats for those who don’t mind living two kilometers outside of the city center. This building is built of concrete slabs and is in good repair.

Within this range one can also buy a summer house on the outskirts of Kyiv. The upside of this purchase will be a 0.06–0.1-hectare land plot into the bargain, and the “possibility to build from scratch,” Biberova says.

Foreign interest

Lada Hudson, a real estate consultant at Jones East 8, says that Kyiv’s real estate is affordable but says that buyers will have better chances if their budget is above $100,000.

“In the city center prices have fallen to the level of the 1990s,” she says. “You can be lucky, but not with such amounts as $50,000 or $100,000.”
Hudson also says that there is sustained and growing interest from foreigners in buying real estate in Kyiv, as the city is becoming better in terms of culture, the arts and youth activities.

“Outgoing diplomats in time buy flats for themselves,” she says. “There is also affordable and high quality infrastructure for children, and schools.”
But Hudson warns that foreigners might face legal problems.

“There is a problem with the protection of property rights in the courts,” she says. “There is corruption in the courts, and illegal actors can capture ownership of a flat. The law enforcement structures and courts can take long time to respond.”