Jurmala – a playground for luxury, society’s cream pot, heaven of elegance. These and other comparisons were applied when talking about Jurmala in the “fat” years and after the GFC. Since everyone knew from the textbook to invest in real estate, Jurmala really was the most appealing place for residential real estate development, setting the highest sale prices for homes, apartments, and land. However, since we are experiencing major turbulence from the geopolitical situation and global events, is this still the case? To unwrap the true story of the current situation, this article will analyze data for Jurmala’s premium* real estate sales from 2022 to August of this year, taking into consideration recent research done by Latvia Sotheby’s International Realty.
Let’s start by looking at overall volumes—202, 220, and 112 total sales deals in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively, resulting in approximately 78.1m, 89.3m, and 46.6m euros in total sales. Although it does not say much on its own, to not overcomplicate this with many numbers, in short, the results are mediocre compared to previous post-GFC years, meaning about the same as in 2015-18 after adjusting for inflation but much less than 2013-14, even without an adjustment (yikes).
Now, let’s dig deeper into the current situation. If we look at the private house sales in this time frame, we can see a fair share of sales exceeding 1 million euros, with the highest sales reaching the 2.7, 2.8, and 2 million euro marks in the mentioned years. However, many publicly available listings are well above 3 million euros price (can’t even imagine what happens behind closed doors). Does that mean that current owners are delusional and hoping for miracles that might never become real?
What are the major trends we can see from the past 2.5 years?
The most boring trends we can find are in the apartment segment of the market. For three straight years, the average apartment price stayed more or less the same at 2.700 euros per square meter, selling on average 110 square meters for 3-bedroom apartments. Even comparing the quartiles, the results are the same – 210k euros for the first quartile, 270k euros for the second, and 345k euros for the third. What does that mean?
Well, if you are considering building a residential building in Jurmala and want to sell it fast, here is free market research for you (you’re welcome). Apart from that, retail buyers don’t seem to be too elastic about price changes. An important remark that is useful to make is that when looking at the fourth quartile, the prices do not seem to have a trend since, in Jurmala, there is a phenomenon where some properties sell for crazy amounts of money just because of the most prestigious location (1st line) or an overwhelmingly large amount of luxury put in the property and how much money does the buyer is willing to through away, without having a reasonable explanation behind it.
A bit more intriguing finding is that private house sales share has increased both in terms of units and in terms of money. It really seems logical since why would you buy an apartment for the same amount of money that would give you a really nice house (referencing back to the phenomenon of pricing in Jurmala)? In 2022, apartment sales contributed approximately 63% of total sales, but private houses only contributed 31% (the rest of it being sales of land), meanwhile, in 2024, the shares have shifted to 48% and 46%, respectively. Maybe that might justify the sellers’ hopes for bigger demand for their private properties.
To conclude, as in every financial market, the real estate sector has seen its ups and downs. By experiencing many hits from external circumstances, Jurmala’s market is not in its best shape, however, by seeing the potential, the sellers are very keen to hold and wait for the right buyer and set new heights. On the other side, buyers (especially foreigners) do not show a big interest in the properties.
* residential buildings with a sale amount exceeding 250k euros, apartments, and land exceeding 150k euros.
– Kristaps Plate