295,000 square meters of housing were put up in Sverdlovsk Region in January-April 2008, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 23%. In thirty-one cities and districts, the volume of housing was also greater that that registered in January-April 2007. Twenty-six regional municipalities managed to increase their housing construction rate by over 20% against last year’s figures. Yekaterinburg, with its 117,000 square meters of housing (35.6% better than in January-April 2007), tops this list and is followed by Verkhnyaya Pyshma (27,800 square meters of housing – a 44% increase), Polevskoy (5,300 square meters of housing and an increase by 1.9 times), Serov (4,200 square meters of housing and a 33.5% increase), Asbest (3,900 square meters of housing and an increase by 2.5 times), Sysertskiy district (44,500 square meters of housing and an increase by 2.5 times), Tavdinskiy district (4,900 square meters of housing and an increase by four times), Nevyanskiy district (4,900 square meters of housing and a 21.4% increase), and Nizhneserginskiy district (4,100 square meters of housing and an increase by 1.6 times), the regional statisticians report.

In addition, the first four months of 2008 were the time of private housing boom. The region’s dwellers put up 191,100 square meters worth of individual housing using their own financing and bank loans, which is 19.7% better than in January-April 2007. The share of private houses amounted to 64.8% of the total region’s new dwellings and 35.8% of the new housing in Yekaterinburg.