Property for sale in Vilnius

Vilnius is  Lithuania's beautiful Baroque city and the least known of the three Baltic capitals. Its 543,000 inhabitants live in only 20 percent of the city's 392 square kilometers, or 150 square miles, leaving open space that has been turned into parks or left forested. Get more information on property for sale in Lithuania.

Views on the Vilnius real estate :

The city center, which includes the largest Old Town in the Baltics as well as views of Gediminas Castle, has been undergoing a face-lift in preparation for 2009, when Lithuania will celebrate 1,000 years as a nation.

For foreign buyers, though, the focus is on the city's Old Town. Much of the housing stock is being reconstructed, with spacious new apartments rising behind carefully maintained neo-Classical or Baroque facades.

In Vilnius, the sale price of a property for sale  starts at €2,000 per square meter, or about $245 per square foot, rising to €2,600 in a new development in a prime area.

A typical two-bedroom apartment of around 90 square meters usually sells for about €234,000. (Property for sale in Lithuania is priced in euros.)

But prices have been rising. Lithuania's economy is flourishing - its gross domestic product grew 6.3 percent in 2006 and 8.9 percent in 2007 - and analysts say that they expect the trend to continue.

For one thing, it has become easier for Lithuanians to buy property for sale in recent years. Five years ago mortgage rates were around 14 percent, and almost 60 percent of all property for sale purchases were made in cash. Now, interest rates are 3.8 percent and a buyer can routinely get a loan for as much as 90 percent of a property for sale's value.