Originally Posted by nickinberlin

Well, Jurmala can be viewed as a holiday place for wealthy Russian holidaymakers (with prices to match - many developments are more expensive than in Riga itself) but not Riga. So I'm prepared to agree that exit strategy is critical there, like it is on the coast in Bulgaria but not so much in Riga, which has slowly developed the arsenal of a European city: a fast growing middle and entrepreneurial class.

I have a problem with straight comparisons because they're misleading but what exactly is the affordable price per square metre? It looks like we're looking at the Eastern European population as a monolithic bloc. Average salaries in Riga have topped €700 - not much but keep in mind that 50% of French salaries are below €1,500. Spain is even worse - teachers are paid €800 a month. So what's an affordable median price for Riga? €15,000 per sqm like in London or Moscow? €10,000 like in Paris? €2,000 like in Brussels? Riga has a broad ange of properties, from ex-Soviet to new builds & it has enough of an emerging well-off class to sustain a few central high end developments - not so much of the €10,000/sqm variety like in Moscow but of the €3-5,000 type - for local residents.

Funnily enough, since many planned developments have stopped, the ones that came up in 2005-06 seem to hold their value well!