Russian buyers and real estate

Russian buyers are very active in Spain, Greece, France, and Switzerland among other countries. So, how can you sell real estate properties to Russians?

Marketing properties to Russian buyers

In order to market properties to Russian buyers, the first thing to do is to understand how they search for properties. Even if for local searches the Russians will use Yandex, they will go to Google.ru for anything outside Russia.

So, we need to look at bilateral cases, because websites which rank the highest on Google.ru for searches of French properties, might not rank high for searches of Spanish properties, as an example.

Selling French Properties

Let’s for example look at a property search for Paris, France, that a Russian friend of mine made for me. As you can see below (bottom of the article), the websites that rank highest are:

  • Green-Acres.fr – property portal that you can try for free (click here to get 20 contacts for free)
  • Prian  – property portal on which you can advertise properties. To check prices, click here
  • Lodgis – not a property portal but a real estate agency
  • HomesOverseas – a property portal who will only accept listings professionally translated into Russian language. If you can do that, then feel free to contact them by going to their advertising page (more information here)
  • Tranio – a website which works as a broker, and will ask you for a split on the commission if they bring Russian buyers. If this model is fine for you, feel free to contact them on their website (here)

Selling Spanish Real Estate

Russian searches for Spanish real estate bring up the following Russian sites:

Selling Greek Homes

To sell Greek properties to Russian buyers, you may consider:

Marketing Croatian Properties

For Croatia, the Russian websites which rank best on Google.ru are:

Top Real Estate Websites in Russia

The leading real estate websites in Russia are:

  • Avito: leading classifieds (not only real estate) – it has an overseas section (see here) called zarubezhom (litterally “abroad properties”)
  • Domofond: leading property portal in Russia, created by Avito: does not have an overseas section (as of April 2018)
  • Cian.ru : leading property portal in Moscow region, which does not have an overseas section
  • ИЗ РУК В РУКИ ( iz ruk v ruki or Irr.ru ) : used to be a very famous property portal in Russia due to its free paper edition, but it then lost a lot in importance. However the Russians aged over 40 will still remember it and probably use it (click here): there again it does not have an overseas section.

In the case of Russia, the leading websites (property portals and classified websites) are not necessarily the best options to market foreign properties from Spain or France or Greece to Russian buyers.

 

Start Selling Now

To market your properties to Russian buyers:

Talk to Russian buyers

Alternatively, maybe you already received some Russian leads (emails) but don’t know how to deal with them. Should you call them? Most definitely, yes, and in Russian language please! If you don’t speak Russian, don’t worry we have a solution for you. Just click here to discover the solution!

Avito.ru, the largest general marketplace in Russia - view of the Real Estate section (May 2020)
Avito.ru, the largest general marketplace in Russia – view of the Real Estate section (May 2020)