Image from destination360.com

The Russian real estate market is about to change with the introduction of a new price-monitoring system open to everyone.

The Russian Registry Office will make all real estate deals public. It will mean potential buyers will be able to get information about any given address, such as when was it last on the market and for what price it sold. All information will be sorted by kinds of property, location, and price and will be free to obtain. It will also give an average price for property per square meter in a given location and show price changes over the years. The system will be totally anonimous. By the end of  November 2011 the database will have all real estate deals made in Russia since 1999 available.

Realtors aren't convinced the data will be anything more than a general guide and are sceptical about it's usefullness. “Each particular space is a unique product. Two apartments in buildings next to each other can have absolutely different prices per square meter. So the data base will hardly help to understand anything about the prices for buyers.” says a real estate broker Karen Gyandzhuntsev.

Even though no names will be revealed to the public, lawyers say the information can be used in court, to prove one’s credibility. But it will be useful for the tax office investigating evasion cases, although the database can't be used as evidence.

It's often the case in Russia where a smaller price is declared on a property when it is sold. This is due to tax reasons. For homes under a million roubles they can be sold without tax, but if they are worth more and are sold within three years the seller has to pay 13 percent tax..

Similar systems exist in many countries already.  In Russia it's cost about 2 billion dollars to create, but might help some save much more.