Last year, the rent for buildings in Moscow that are currently leased to supermarket chains rose by 9 percent, according to RBC, which cited SimpleEstate as the data source.
Looking back to 2022, the cost of street-level retail space on the city’s first floors fell by 3 percent, while asking prices for sale slipped by 2 percent. Yet the opposite trend appeared for the locations housing supermarkets: rents climbed by 9 percent year over year, and sale prices rose by about 10 percent in comparison with the previous year.
Analysts from SimpleEstate note that the rent for commercial properties exceeding 300 square meters in Moscow stood at 1831 rubles per square meter per month. The average price for sale hovered around 252 thousand rubles per square meter. Supermarkets emerged as one of the most profitable segments within street retail, with an average payback period near 10.4 years.
SimpleEstate also highlighted a scarcity of high-quality buildings offered for sale as part of turnkey rental operations. With limited reliable investment options in Russia, demand for such properties remained elevated, reflecting a preference among investors for ready-to-lease assets that can generate steady cash flow from day one.
By year end, Kommersant reported, citing market participants, that while overall demand had cooled, the Moscow office market saw a rise in transaction activity in December. Occupiers tended to shift toward smaller, more compact spaces, even as the number of deals edged upward compared with earlier months.