Necessity and possibility of Russia’s housing policy improvement under sanctions

The article provides a brief overview of the situation in the Russian economy after the imposition of sanctions by the United States and European countries. The assessment is given of a hard situation in the housing construction sector because of the high discount rate of the Central Bank, which affects corporate loans, mortgage loans, destruction of logistics supply chains of materials, significant increase in prices for materials and services, physical absence of foreign materials, departure of migrant workers and satisfaction of future demand in 2021. Assuming a long period of sanctions, the author presents a set of measures to change housing policy, which can become one of the main drivers of Russia’s social and economic development under sanctions, including a change in the emphasis in housing policy from high-rise to low-rise individual housing construction, which will allow maintaining the volume of production of industries connected with housing construction and developing regions by merging of urban districts into an agglomeration. In addition to preferential mortgage programs for the construction of individual low-rise houses and for the purchase of secondary housing, the municipal and private partnerships and construction savings banks are suggested, also it is suggested to use digital technologies to create ecosystems in housing construction, combination and process of big data of citizens’ assets, incomes and expenses in order to reduce the cost of mortgages and the selection of specific organizations and products for the solution of the housing issue. The author’s four-level methodology of integrated assessment of efficiency of regional housing policy is suggested for setting strategic goals and monitoring, which is based on the methodological approach of S.A. Ayvazyan and on the methodology of the urban digitalization index “IQ of Cities”, which was developed by the Ministry of Construction of Russia in cooperation with Lomonosov Moscow State University.