Baltic housing in Q2: is the secondary market taking over?
Housing prices continued to rise across the Baltic states in the second quarter of 2026, but the three markets are increasingly moving in different ways.
According to the national statistical agencies, Lithuania recorded the fastest annual increase at 14.3%, followed by Latvia at 11.4% and Estonia at 5.8%. Lithuania also accelerated markedly from the first quarter, while Latvia’s headline growth changed little and Estonia remained close to its Q1 pace.
Annual house-price growth
| Q1 2026 | Q2 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Lithuania | 11.9% | 14.3% |
| Latvia | 10.9% | 11.4% |
| Estonia | 5.9% | 5.8% |
The more important change, however, is inside the markets. Existing housing is appreciating faster than new housing in both Lithuania and Latvia, while Estonia is seeing a growing commercial gap between expensive new apartments and the secondary market.
Lithuania: high prices, and still accelerating
Lithuania’s official House Price Index rose 5.0% quarter on quarter and 14.3% year on year in Q2.
The increase was broad:
| Lithuania, Q2 2026 | q/q | y/y |
|---|---|---|
| All dwellings | 5.0% | 14.3% |
| New dwellings | 3.7% | 11.6% |
| Existing dwellings | 5.5% | 15.3% |
The figures come from Lithuania’s State Data Agency house-price statistics.
The strongest pressure is not confined to Vilnius. Previously built apartments rose 17.2% year on year nationally and 19.1% outside Vilnius.
This matters because Lithuania is no longer a low-price market simply catching up. Absolute prices in Vilnius are already high. A market survey by developer EIKA Development, reported by LRT, put the average asking price for a new apartment in Vilnius at around €4,100/m² at the end of the first half of 2026. This is an asking-price indicator from one market participant, rather than the official transaction-price index, but it illustrates the level from which the Lithuanian market is still rising.
The notable feature of Q2 is therefore not only Lithuania’s 14.3% headline increase. It is the combination of a high price level with continued double-digit appreciation in both new and existing housing.
Latvia: existing housing rises as new-build inflation fades
Latvia’s overall house-price index increased 3.9% quarter on quarter and 11.4% year on year in Q2, according to the Central Statistical Bureau.
But the headline number conceals an increasingly sharp split. Existing dwellings rose 13.3% year on year, while new housing increased by only 1.7%. Quarter on quarter the difference was similarly large: 4.6% versus 0.7%.
The direction was already visible in Q1, when existing housing was up 12.2% annually and new dwellings 4.0%. What changed in Q2 was the further slowdown of new housing: annual price growth fell from 4.0% to 1.7%.
That makes Latvia more complicated than a simple “cheap Riga” story.
Existing housing has been repricing upward for several quarters, while prices of new dwellings are barely moving. Riga may offer developers lower land and entry costs than Tallinn or Vilnius, but the Latvian data do not show an unlimited appetite for increasingly expensive new apartments.
That distinction becomes important when looking at Estonia.
Estonia: new apartments sell more slowly, while secondary prices rise
Estonia’s official Dwelling Price Index rose 3.5% quarter on quarter and 5.8% year on year in Q2. Apartment prices increased 5.3% annually and house prices 6.8%.
The official statistics also show why price movements and transaction activity should be treated separately.
Statistics Estonia reported that the monetary volume of transactions involving existing apartments increased in Q2, but the growth came primarily from outside Tallinn. In Tallinn itself, the total value of transactions involving existing apartments declined.
At the same time, City24 data reported by ERR point to much weaker activity in the new-build segment: the number of transactions involving new apartments fell by more than 40% from Q1 to Q2.
Prices tell a somewhat different story. City24 estimates put a new apartment in Tallinn at around €4,635/m², roughly 55% above the secondary-market level. New-development prices have recently changed little, while City24 estimates secondary-market prices in Tallinn to have risen by 4.3%.
There is therefore no contradiction between rising secondary-market prices and weaker transaction volume in Tallinn. One describes the price of completed transactions; the other describes how much property is changing hands.
The more significant signal is the difficulty of selling expensive new housing.
Why Estonian developers are looking at Riga
Against this background, ERR reported this week that an increasing number of Estonian developers are operating in Latvia.
Invego and Reterra are jointly developing a residential project in Riga with investment of nearly €40 million. The companies cite cheaper land and faster planning procedures as important reasons for entering the Latvian market.
Those permitting comparisons should be treated as the developers’ own assessment rather than an independent measure of regulatory efficiency. Invego CEO Kristjan-Thor Vähi told ERR that planning and permitting can take roughly three times less time in Latvia, while Reterra CEO Reigo Randmets contrasted a six-year permitting process for one Estonian project with seven months for a recent Latvian permit. Randmets himself described these as somewhat extreme examples.
The same companies also acknowledge the other side of the equation: purchasing power is lower in Latvia and selling apartments in Riga is not necessarily easy.
That qualification fits the official Latvian statistics. Riga may offer cheaper land and lower development costs, but Latvia’s new-housing prices are barely rising, even as the existing stock becomes substantially more expensive.
Three months ago, the first-quarter data already showed that Baltic housing prices were rising for different reasons. Q2 has sharpened those differences.
Lithuania is accelerating despite already high prices. Latvia’s existing housing continues to appreciate rapidly while new-build price growth has slowed almost to a halt. Estonia has the weakest headline inflation of the three, but its expensive new-build segment is facing weaker transaction activity.
The move by Estonian developers into Riga does not yet prove a broad relocation of Baltic real-estate capital. It does, however, provide a concrete example of developers responding to those differences in costs, prices and market conditions across the three neighbouring markets.