Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We connect you to the best real estate information across Australia. The Real Estate Podcast. And welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Podcast, available on iHeartRadio, also on Google and Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast from. Well, what a hell of a week with the flooding in Brisbane and New South Wales, and of course the continued bombing in the Ukraine.
And overnight, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the UN Security Council in an emergency meeting that Russia's reckless attack on the nuclear power plant endangered all of Europe.
She said, by the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night and it was incredibly reckless and dangerous and it threatened the safety of civilians across Russia, Ukraine and Europe. You know, we just keep getting surprised, don't we, at the escalation of Putin's madness and total disrespect for civilian life.
And remember, we are feeling the horror from the shores of our own borders. Imagine the horror of feeling the effects on the ground inside the Ukraine. And although last night's nuclear plant attack would have had neighboring countries like Poland and the rest of Europe quaking, It's unimaginable to think what might have happened.
And as somebody who watched the Chernobyl series last year, I could not have imagined what would have happened 12 months later. It's almost dreamlike. So insane, it's hard to digest, yet understand the rationale for it.
And Olga Malchevskaya, who was a journalist in Kiev, said she couldn't believe in her head what she was seeing is actually somewhere she used to live as footage of the damage was shown online with chilling, catastrophic mayhem in the streets where she used to walk down.
And tragically, she had just learned her family was among the many victims of these blasts and that it had also destroyed her family's apartment. But among the terror, a little bit of good news.
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Chapter 2: What recent events are impacting real estate in Ukraine?
People looking to help Ukrainians from far away have been booking empty Airbnb rentals in Ukraine's hardest hit areas as a way to quickly send cash to the country. In Erpin, a city located just west of Kiev, as the city descends into gunfire and chaos, a few apartments available to rent on Airbnb have been snapped up by people trying to help the war effort.
It started after one person booked an Airbnb apartment in the city with little intention of staying there. Erpin Town, where the apartment is located, is a hot flashpoint. and that the Airbnb owner of the rental said that his soldiers stopped three waves of Russian tanks moving to Kiev and Irpin.
And he promised to use the donations for charity and to use apartments in Irpin to help people who have lost their homes in the war. And then, as one good deed is done, a greedy one is warned against. Twitter have been very quick to note that Russian scammers may try to set up fake listings in the Ukraine to cash in on noble intentions and warned users to check the reviews before trying to help.
hell of a week and I want to take you back in time to August 2021 and a piece that was written about real estate prices in Kiev that had been skyrocketing in recent months with little sign of the bubble bursting anytime soon. The article said take a drive through the Ukrainian capital Kiev and one of the things that becomes immediately noticeable is the abundance of construction sites.
Throughout the city, more and more apartment blocks and living complexes, essentially gated communities of apartment buildings, are springing up everywhere. It said the left side of the city, once an industrial zone with just a few scattered apartment blocks, is now chock full of new construction sites, many over 20 storeys tall. and that the city real estate sector is visibly booming.
All of this new construction, however, is still not enough to meet demand. And statistics from Kiev city administration shows that the average available apartment space per resident is about 20 square metres. Now, for comparison, in most developed cities around the world, the average is between 30 and 40 square metres per resident.
And with new constructions failing to keep pace with demand and an already established lack of available apartments with little sign of a downturn on the horizon.
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Chapter 3: How did the nuclear power plant attack affect Europe?
Remember, this was written in August 2021. went on to say that the rise can be explained by a number of factors Kiev is the economic and political center of the country attractive for internal migrants from elsewhere in the country in fact Kiev is the only major Ukrainian city whose population is currently growing while the population of the rest of the country as a whole is in a steady decline
And despite the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, the real estate sector in the city emerged unscathed. In fact, it appears it has been bolstered by the pandemic, so no surprise there. See, at one real estate company, most of our clients buy to rent. This is a key element, they say.
It appears that most of the demand for property purchases is coming from people looking to invest in real estate and not buy a home for themselves. And this means that the available properties are being concentrated in relatively few hands. And with mortgages often coming with high interest rates, few people can afford to invest in new housing projects.
In fact, in 2020, mortgage rates in the Ukraine averaged 18%. To attempt to make housing more affordable for citizens, the Ukrainian government introduced an affordable mortgage program offering a mortgage rate of 7% to some borrowers, mainly young families. Furthermore, they went on to say that even the affordable mortgage program is out of the reach for many young families.
They say that they would need to have a huge package of documents just to verify their age, their occupation, their salary. It's a very difficult and time-consuming process to successfully buy at a reduced interest rate of 7%. Well, Kiev property now hangs in the balance. The boom has stopped. The economy is shattered. Refuge is now across the border.
Real estate, it seems in this instance, can change in a heartbeat. But the resolve, determination, the guts and single-minded focus continue to fight on for freedom by an unswayed, never give up attitude of the Ukrainian spirit. Thank you.
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