Агентство недвижимости RD Global

Prospects for real estate in Latvia

According to experts in the medium term property prices in Latvia will grow within 3 - 4% annually. And the price of residential properties particularly successful premium, located mainly in Riga and Jurmala, in the current year may grow by 15%.

Factor that allows to say that the real estate market in Latvia will and must grow is the lack of provision of housing. According to the bureau Eurostat, per capita EU-27 accounts for 1,5 rooms. That is, the average family of Europeans - mother, father and two children - live in a 4-room apartment or holiday home. In Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Malta have one resident has two or more rooms, while in Latvia the figure is not even one room per person.

Given inflation and the post-crisis stable growth in house prices, house prices in the primary and secondary markets in Riga and the Latvian industrial cities can only increase. True, the new boom will not happen: a modest increase in prices is projected - within 3 - 4% per year.

Comes to life in Latvia and the commercial area, which is associated with an increase in exports, which in some segments of the performance even better than in the pre-crisis years. The most intensive in this sense, developing the port cities - Riga, Ventspils and Liepaja, Jelgava and Valmiera and. But in this case, as in the case of availability of housing, Latvia lags behind other EU countries: for example, on one Rigan has an average of only 0.5 square meters. meters of office area, and speaking of the Latvians on average, this is a matter of centimeters. The index of Stockholm and Copenhagen - almost 6 square. m of offices per capita.

The only area in which over twenty years of independence, Latvia has achieved fantastic success - it's squaring of shopping centers per capita.

Then with the index of almost 600 square meters. meters by 1000 residents of the country and almost 900 square meters. meters per thousand inhabitants of Riga Latvia the same level as Denmark and Germany, and ahead of Lithuania, Estonia and even about four times as Belgium. According to forecasts, this segment in the near term will remain the fastest growing, as determined by a high proportion of consumer spending on food, as well as the high profitability of developers of shopping centers, recoup investments in such facilities over a period of 4 to 10 years.

In the short term, Latvia will be the primary market for buying real estate owned by the bankrupt.

Experts describe the rise in prices in most segments of the real estate market as a small, largely provoked by inflation.

The only segment with high demand - an exclusive, piece residential real estate. For example, a house or apartment on the first line to the seaside. There is not always possible to give customers what they ask, for example, Muscovites want to buy an apartment or house in the neighborhood, saying they are friends and family bought a house in Nice, and on Rublevsky-Uspensky highway. In Jurmala, unfortunately, these objects are rare. Rising property prices in the luxury and premium segments, compared with last spring is already around 10%.

It is predicted that house or apartment with good location in 2012 will cost the same as before the crisis of 2006 or 2007. 10 - 15% annual growth in the value of luxury housing in Riga and Jurmala each year for five years - it is reality. Other segments of the market is still rather passive.

Accommodation in the Old Town in the attic with a view of the red-tiled roofs sea. Or a quiet bourgeois city center, in a house built early last century in art nouveau style with stucco bay windows, heraldic symbols on the facade of stone and the Atlanteans, sustaining a balcony. Townhouse, apartment or an old outhouse in three minutes from the beach of Jurmala. Former estate of Baron or house somewhere in the boonies, away from the urbanization. Segment of the premium real estate in Latvia offers hundreds of different investment options.

Cost objects of elite residential real estate in Latvia increased in 2004 - 2006, respectively, two years ago, dropped to the lower limit. As a result, such property can be purchased for 50 - 60% of its pre-crisis value. This does not exist in Moscow or in London. Most buyers are interested in the capital city and Jurmala. While there are non-residents, which is attractive to stay away from urbanization, for example, in a cottage in a forest districts in hundreds or more miles from Riga.

Not the main argument, but an obvious plus for non-residents from third countries investing in the Latvian real estate purchase at least 100 thousand lats (in the province - 50 th), - access to "investor visas". Obtaining a residence permit valid for 5 years gives the right of free movement on the territory of the Schengen countries. This right extends to the family of the investor. Such is not the way, in Turkey and Greece, is positioned as European investment platform.