In Ukraine's first capital, there is a place to stay
Given that for most landlords who rent out flats, this is a serious daily business, and hence advertisements are submitted and updated regularly and relevantly, we decided to use the 'Kharkiv Daily' section on the portal Kharkiv Estate. Anyone can submit ads on this portal for free, and the high traffic makes it very attractive for advertisers. At the same time, the algorithms and moderation used protect against duplicate ads, which is very important for the purposes of our analysis.
It turned out that only about half of flat owners who usually rent out their flats to visitors on a daily basis are ready to rent their flat or house for New Year's Eve, despite the rather high prices offered. Renting a flat from December 21, 2009 to January 1, 2010 will cost about 10-25 times more than renting the same flat for one day.
Moreover, the structure of supply in this market differs noticeably from the structure of demand. So, mostly 'luxury' or near-luxury flats are offered in the central districts of the city, while for the tenant the main criterion is not luxury, but the total area of the rented flat.
As follows from ads by people wanting to rent a flat for New Year's Eve on another Kharkiv website, there is especially high demand for private houses within the city or in the near suburbs. At the same time, supply of such houses is virtually absent. According to our data, the cost of renting a house for, say, a corporate event ranges from 2.5 to 5 thousand UAH. The trend of increased demand specifically for renting houses as opposed to flats in apartment buildings is not only characteristic of the pre-New Year period – this trend was observed throughout 2009.
It remains only to express hope that by 2011 supply and demand will be more aligned, prices for ordinary flats will decrease, and the supply of houses will grow.