APARTMENT PRICES IN YEREVAN HAVE NOT ACTUALLY RISEN OVER THE PAST YEAR, DIRECTOR OF MONOLITH REALTY SAYS

Noyan Tapan
Jan 16 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 16, NOYAN TAPAN. Over the past year apartment prices
have not risen in Yerevan, but such an impression has been created
by an unprecedented fall in the dollar’s exchange rate against the
Armenian dram in the indicated period. Alexander Durgarian, Director of
the Monolith Realty real esate agency, expressed this opinion during
a talk with NT correspondent. In his words, now all transactions in
Armenia are done in drams, and for this reason "there has been a 30%
inflation". He said that over the past year about 50% of apartment
buyers in Yerevan’s Kentron community have been Diasporan Armenians
or foreigners.

According to Chairman of Actsern holding Hakob Baghdasarian, the
rise in apartment prices in Yerevan is mainly due to the increase of
remittances from abroad, which are in foreign currency, while the
unpredictability of exchange rate’s behaviour makes people invest
money in real estate. Besides, in the words of H. Baghdasarian,
Diasporan Armenians accumulate their money in homeland – by purchasing
real estate.

It was mentioned that the rise of apartment prices is also conditioned
by the imperfection of Armenia’s securities market anf the limited
number of financial resource accumulation instruments. "Today the best
way of ensuring liquidity of resources is to purchase real esate,"
H. Baghdasarian concluded.