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Akbar Novruz

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At the Sea Breeze stand in this seaside project near Baku on the Absheron Peninsula, visitors to the event this week saw plans for a 5.5km Formula One track with 18 turns, a 323-meter-high tower and a settlement meant to accommodate 500,000 people. This setting was appropriate for the visit by President Ilham Aliyev on November 4 to the AIREX 2026 show, which is the first international property exhibition in Azerbaijan, being held at the Baku Expo Center in a year designated as the Year of Urban Planning and Architecture. There are sixty-one firms participating, forty-seven of them from Azerbaijan and fourteen from abroad.

Currently, Sea Breeze occupies more than 1,000 hectares, and the plan is to increase the territory to 1,850. There are more than 50 completed and ongoing projects, and 60,000 people live in it.

However, the most illustrative project of all is Baku White City, opened in December 2011, occupying the territory of what used to be called Black City – polluted for more than 150 years from industrial wastes of oil production. Now it is a city of skyscrapers, streets, and sculptures, and the residential buildings are the first in the CIS to have met the environmental standards of BREEAM and CRREM requirements for carbon risk. The Gilavar complex contains a 49-storey 185 metres tall building, built with the participation of the American company SOM, that built the Burj Khalifa. A museum of the oil industry, constructed together with SOCAR, makes the symbolism complete: the gains from oil are turned into immovable property.

The exhibitors show the presence of companies operating outside their home country. The PASHA Real Estate Group is a branch of the PASHA Holding company working not only in Azerbaijan but also in Türkiye, the USA, Montenegro, Georgia, and Uzbekistan in cooperation with different international hotels. Since 2013, PMD Group has been developing projects like Victory Park in Baku as well as projects in Absheron and liberated territories. There are also some foreign names: Chapman Taylor from Britain, who prepared a master plan for Shusha, Jabrayil, Khankendi and Nakhchivan; the MODON agency from the UAE, whose project was developed for the Boyukshor Lake territory; Silk Development from Georgia; and Housing Development Corporation from the Maldives.

Who actually buys the most in Baku?

Well, the data on the buyer's composition paints a more sober picture. During January-September, 824 objects were purchased by people from abroad, according to the State Property Service. 588 of them, or 71.4%, belonged to the Russians. Second place is held by Georgians, who purchased 80 houses, followed by the Turks (51), Iranians (17), Kazakhs (14), and Germans (12). All other nationalities purchased fewer houses: Americans and Pakistanis – six each, Chinese – two.

Concentration is nothing new here perhaps; between 2021-25, citizens of 57 countries purchased 6,913 objects; 6,182 out of them belonged to Russians, or about two-thirds of all objects. But the share of the Russians increased slightly compared to before. Yet, it seems that the tempo slowed down because 824 purchases per nine months means around 1,100 purchases per year, which is around 20% below the 2021-25 average of 1,380.

Another part of the exhibition was quite a contrast. The State Housing Development Agency, MIDA, has completed 20 projects in the country, seven in Baku, three in Garabagh, and ten in the rest of the locations, with schools, kindergartens, and clinics in addition to the apartments. It has also completed five subsidized housing projects in the capital and six in the regions, where, out of six ongoing projects, three are being constructed, and three are at the design stage. The Garabagh Revival Fund, which invests resources for reconstruction of the territories, presented its projects as well.

So, we see an interesting contrast in the development of real estate in Azerbaijan, on the one hand, luxurious coastal areas attracting investments, and on the other hand, affordable state-sponsored housing trying to maintain the livability of the city. In this way, for the government, which develops the economy of Azerbaijan without relying on oil, both directions are important.