Our pan-Baltic Real Estate & Construction team have prepared legal notes for the annual Ober-Haus Real Estate Market Report 2022 on the capitals of the Baltic States: Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn.

The overview focuses on the markets in office, commercial, storage and residential premises, as well as on land plots in each of the capital cities. It also includes information related to taxes, which was drawn up by the audit, accounting and consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Recovery after the pandemic and new challenges

“Having recovered from the first shock caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Baltic economies showed rapid growth in 2021. While the Latvian and Lithuanian economies grew by 4.6–4.8%, the Estonian economy jumped by 8.3% in 2021. The recovery in consumer spending, the availability of cheap and affordable finance and the optimism that have emerged have also given additional impetus to the growth of the real estate market, both in the capital cities of the Baltic States as well as in other Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian regions,” writes Tarmo Kase, CEO of Ober-Haus Real Estate Advisors, in the freshly published report.

“The prospects of the real estate market seemed especially good for 2022 since all the fundamental factors that promote the market remained relevant up to the beginning of 2022. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has caused a global geopolitical and economic crisis. The ongoing war threatens, to a greater or lesser extent, economic development globally. And the Baltic countries, due to their geographical position, cannot but be affected by these events.

Evidently, the previous fairly optimistic forecasts for economic growth, development of various economic industries, including the real estate market, will have to be and have already been adjusted for the worse. Nonetheless, generally, both the housing and the commercial real estate market should actually withstand the challenges and hold on to the fundamental factors, that promote development, in 2022,” comments Kase.

Our team

The legal notes in the report were drawn up by partner Paul Künnap, associate Elina Mizerova and assistant lawyer Anu Liinsoo from our Estonian office; senior associate Andris Vilisons and assistant lawyer Jūlija Triščuka from our Latvian office; and partner Kęstutis Adamonis, as well as associates Gabrielė Raižytė and Simonas Šlitas, from our Lithuanian office.