Comparative Analysis of the Housingand Utility Services Affordability for the Population of Russian Federation and Foreign Countries

Abstract

The affordability of housing and utility services for the population of Russian Federation and foreign countries is analyzed in the article. The authors have developed the method which gives the opportunity to bring the housing and utility costs of the population of Russian Federation and foreign countries to comparable conditions. The main result is providing reliable distribution of the costs of the housing and utility services in European countries, where Russian Federation has one of the lowest positions. So, existing substantiation of freezing tariffs for housing and utility services is ungrounded. There is a socio-economic opportunity to raise tariffs for increasing investment attractiveness of the sector. There is also a need for redistribution of the population spending between housing and utility services in favor of the former.