Why I tell people moving to Almaty to rent first and buy later

Why rent an apartment in Almaty before buying

The Almaty you see in pictures and the Almaty you live in every day are two different cities. In photos every district looks equally good: mountains, trees, new buildings. The difference shows up in January, at rush hour, and at eight in the morning when your child has to get to school.

I moved here from Shymkent in 2010 and spent my first months living in a trailer on a construction site. I learned the city on foot, and that knowledge saved me money more than once. Renting gives you the same experience, just in a normal apartment.

How Almaty districts differ for everyday life

The city sits on a slope: the south is higher and closer to the mountains, the north is lower and flatter. Almost everything you will notice in your first winter depends on that.

What 2–3 months of renting costs, and what a mistake costs

Let's use OLX figures for June 2026. A two-room apartment in Medeu district cost 300,000 ₸ a month on average, so three months come to about 900,000 ₸ plus a deposit you get back later.

Now the mistake. Say you bought an apartment for 80 million ₸ and six months later realized the district isn't for you. On the 2026 resale market there are 7–8 listings per buyer, and a quick sale usually costs 10–15% of the price. That's 8–12 million ₸, before the notary, the move and the lost time.

There is also a quiet overpayment: an apartment with no obvious flaws but poor liquidity. It is hard to rent out and slow to sell. As an investor this is the first thing I look at, because I made my money reselling about 15 apartments and I know which ones sell in a month and which sit for a year.

What a rent-then-buy plan looks like

I usually split a move into four steps. The timing is rough and can be compressed if you're in a hurry.

• Before you arrive: we talk about your budget, work, school and habits. I suggest two or three districts and find a rental for your arrival date.
• First two weeks: you move in, we tour the districts over one or two days, and you see the city in the evenings and at weekends.
• One to two months: I shortlist homes to buy, filter out hard-to-sell ones and buildings with questionable structure, and you only view the short list.
• Purchase: checking the owner and the documents, negotiating the price, signing at the notary. By then the rental has ended or is extended until the renovation is done.

What to watch for if you want to buy right away

Sometimes waiting isn't an option: the family is already on its way, or you've found a rare property. In that case I won't talk you out of it, but I'll ask you to think clearly about three things.

First, a foreigner without a residence permit cannot register housing in their own name. There are legal routes, through an LLP or by buying non-residential property, but you need to choose one before the search, not after. Second, a developer in the foothills, where a moratorium has applied since October 2025, needs an especially careful check of its permits. Third, if air quality matters to you, don't decide on the basis of summer viewings.

What I do at this stage

I look at an apartment as a builder, an investor and a lawyer. The builder sees what the building is made of. In 2019 I had my own concrete plant in Burunday, so the builder in me checks the concrete grade and material certificates too. The investor works out what the apartment will be worth in five years and how much rent it can bring. The lawyer reads the documents before you pay a single tenge.

I work the way I got used to at Kaspi Bank: you get answers quickly, you understand every next step, and you deal with one person. We discuss the price of the service for your situation and fix it in writing before we start. The commission on the purchase itself starts at 1%.