The total supply of new housing in Vilnius increased by 13 percent over the year and reached 3,780 unsold apartments at the beginning of July this year. During the first half of this year, developers offered almost 2,200 new apartments, or 33 percent. more than in the same period in 2016, while buyers purchased about 2,000 apartments or 2.5 percentbetter than last year.
Developers are actively proposing new projects
In 2017, the new housing market shows increasing activity of real estate developers. “We note that comparing the first half of this year and last year, the activity of real estate developers increased by a third. This was influenced by housing sales that have grown by at least a fifth for three consecutive years, which encouraged developers to keep up and offer new projects to the market,” says Martynas Žibūda, Development Director of EIKA. The greatest activity was recorded in the economy class, which during the first half of this year was replenished with 1,300 apartments in twenty new projects – twice as much as in the same period last year. The supply of middle-class housing remains stable – about 770 new apartments were offered to buyers, while the supply of prestigious class was replenished with only 90 apartments in just two housing projects.
“It is obvious that development processes in the central part of the city are proceeding much more slowly than many developers would like, as there is still a shortage of prestigious housing,” says EIKA Development Director. “Based on the data we have collected, we can predict that in the second half of this year, prestigious housing will be offered several times more than in the last 6 months,” predicts EIKA Development Director Martynas Žibūda.
Buyer activity remains at last year’s level, but is no longer growing
During the first half of 2017, about 2,000 new construction apartments were sold, or fifty apartments less than during the same period last year. According to EIKA Development Director Martynas Žibūda, the figures show that buyer activity is essentially unchanged and remains at the level of last year, but it is no longer growing, as was usual in the past few years. “It seems that the inertia of real estate processes will lead to an ever-increasing housing supply, which may increase the stock of vacant apartments, even if the sales level remains at the level of last year. On the other hand, the activity of developers could also be explained by the fact that 3,300 out of 3,780 or 87 percent. of all unsold apartments are more virtual than real – they have not yet been built,” says EIKA Development Director Martynas Žibūda.
During the first six months of this year, the majority or about 46 percent of all sales were made up of economy-class housing, slightly less or 44 percent – medium-class and about 10 percent – prestigious-class housing. The latter was purchased twice as much as developers offered to the market. On average, the price of new housing grew by 2.5 percent per year and currently amounts to 1747 Eur/sq m.