Newly completed apartments ready to move into are selling well in new developments, and in Tallinn at least, buyers are prioritizing convenience and saving time.

Developers are also seeing average apartment prices rise, particularly on the back of higher construction costs, "Aktuaalne kaamera" reported.

"In 2024, when the market was at a low point, sales of new homes in Tallinn bottomed out. Over the past two years, the number of transactions has risen by 5 percent a year, and that trend is continuing. The growth is very small, but it is there, which means demand is increasing," said Indrek Tarto, head of residential property developer Merko Kodud.

Despite this, new builds are not selling as well as existing apartments. In the second quarter of this year, there were more than 40 percent fewer transactions involving new apartments than in the first three months of the year. Meanwhile, the secondary market is growing, particularly outside Tallinn.

"Prices in new developments go for around €4,635 per square meter in Tallinn, and that figure has remained very stable. But there is no longer much growth there today. Over the past two quarters, growth has been around 0.7 to 1 percent," said Karin Noppel-Kokerov, head of the City24.ee property portal.

"Today, growth is being driven by the secondary market. In Tallinn, growth has been 4.3 percent, while outside Tallinn it has been 4.6 percent, meaning the area around Tallinn has seen stronger growth," she went on.

According to Noppel-Kokerov, the price per square meter of a brand-new apartment in Tallinn is 55 percent higher than that of an apartment on the secondary market. In Tartu, that difference is somewhat smaller at 43 percent.

With average wage growth having lagged behind the rise in housing prices in recent years, it follows that older apartments are in higher demand.

Predicting price movements is challenging given the fragile geopolitical situation. Even if growth slows, prices are expected to continue rising.

Bigbank chief economist Raul Eamets said demand for apartments and houses could anyway rise.

"We can expect economic growth this year to come in at around 2 to 2.5 percent," Eamets told "Aktuaalne kaamera". "Wage growth will also be quite strong this year. We can therefore expect demand for apartments and houses to increase. One countervailing factor next year could be that interest rates also start to rise, which would curb demand somewhat," he added.

According to Statistics Estonia, the dwelling price index rose 3.5 percent in the second quarter of 2026 when compared with the first quarter, and by at5.8 percent compared with the second quarter of 2025. Apartment prices were up 3.2 percent quarter on quarter and 5.3 percent year on year, while house prices rose 4.3 percent and 6.8 percent respectively.

"The year-on-year change in apartment prices was the lowest of the last four quarters. While the prices of houses increased year on year, the rise was still lower than a year ago," said Hendrik Pungar, a data scientist at Statistics Estonia. He noted that new apartment prices fell slightly in Tartu and Pärnu and in areas bordering Tallinn, but rose a little in Tallinn and elsewhere in Estonia. The monetary volume of transactions involving existing apartments increased, driven primarily by apartments outside Tallinn, as the total value of transactions with existing apartments in Tallinn fell.

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