July vs. June: Fewer Deals, but Pricier Land

In July, people paid noticeably more for land than a month earlier — but there were fewer deals overall. The average price per hectare rose 5.4% to $1,365. At the same time, the number of registered purchase-sale deals fell 4.4% to 9,930, and the total area of land sold dropped 6.0% to 19,672 hectares. At first glance this looks contradictory: why would the price rise when both the number of deals and the amount of land sold went down? Let’s break it down.

July vs. June

Fewer land deals were closed in July and less land was sold overall than in June — but each hectare sold cost more on average. Another indicator confirms this: how far the sale price exceeds the normative government valuation (NGO). The NGO is the official value of a plot, calculated by the state using a set formula; in practice it’s almost always lower than the real price land sells for. In July, buyers paid on average 94.1% more than this official valuation — in other words, nearly double. In June the gap was 83.5%, so it widened by another 10.6 percentage points over the month (pp — the difference between two percentage figures, not a percentage of a percentage). This means buyers are relying less and less on the official valuation and more and more on real market demand.

Why Did This Happen?

The main reason isn’t that prices jumped sharply everywhere at once, but that the mix of where deals were being made shifted.

Activity dropped most noticeably in Kharkiv region: the number of deals there fell from 581 in June to 327 in July — nearly half, or -43.7%. Kharkiv is one of the cheaper regions by price per hectare (around UAH 50–51K, well below the national average), and its share of all deals across Ukraine shrank from 5.6% to 3.3%. When activity drops specifically in a cheaper region, the national average price gets pulled up automatically — even if no individual region actually got more expensive. Broader context matters here: active combat is ongoing in Ukraine, and Kharkiv region is one of those bordering the combat zone. This is a structural factor affecting the land market not just in Kharkiv but in other regions that are in or adjacent to active or former combat zones (Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv) — reduced activity and caution among market participants there isn’t a temporary fluctuation but a direct consequence of the security situation, and that’s worth keeping in mind in any analysis of regional shifts.

But that’s not the only reason. In most regions where trading remained active, prices genuinely rose — and by a lot. In Kirovohrad region, a hectare got 12.6% more expensive over the month; in Sumy, 11.7%; in Khmelnytskyi, 9.7%; in Chernihiv, likewise 9.7%. So two factors are at play at once: activity shifted toward pricier regions, and where deals were still happening, prices genuinely climbed.

The Highest-Priced Regions in July

Here are the regions where a hectare of land cost the most by the end of the month:

• Ivano-Frankivsk$1,836UAH 82,040
• Poltava$1,832UAH 81,899
• Vinnytsia$1,821UAH 81,396
• Khmelnytskyi$1,786UAH 79,823

Luhansk region is excluded from this ranking — only 1 deal was registered there for the month, not enough for a meaningful comparison.

The Most Active Regions by Number of Deals

And here are the regions where the most deals closed over the month. Tellingly, Vinnytsia and Poltava regions appear on both this list and the most-expensive ranking — high activity and some of the highest prices in the country, at once.

Three of the five leaders by deal count — Vinnytsia, Poltava, and Khmelnytskyi — also rank among the most expensive regions: both demand and price are high there. The exception is Chernihiv, where deals are plentiful but the price per hectare is actually below the national average.

July’s data shows the land market is no longer moving as one single, nationwide trend. In some regions (like Kharkiv) activity dropped sharply, while in others (Kirovohrad, Chernihiv) the number of deals even grew — and price grew right along with it. That means the situation is worth assessing region by region, not just by watching the national average price. It’s also worth remembering the war as a factor: active combat isn’t a temporary circumstance but a constant structural influence on the entire land market, especially in regions that border or sit near the combat zone. For those regions, standard market explanations (seasonality, supply and demand) only tell part of the story — the security situation there remains the main factor to weigh first.

The premium of sale price over NGO valuation rose to 94.1% — the sixth month in a row this gap has widened. This shows buyers are consistently willing to pay well above the official, and usually outdated, land valuation. For plot owners, that’s an important signal: using the NGO valuation to set a sale price has long stopped being a good strategy — it almost always understates the real market value.

At the same time, a drop in the number of deals and area sold doesn’t necessarily mean a weak market. It’s entirely possible that owners of less attractive or less well-located plots are simply in no hurry to sell on current terms and are waiting for a better offer, while real demand and willingness to pay a high price for quality land aren’t going anywhere.