Estonia's Largest Real Estate Agency Got a New Manager

Marek Kirjanen became the new head of residential properties at Uus Maa, Estonia's largest real estate office, from the first of May. The Uus Maa residential properties group has a total of approximately 200 real estate agents.

Professional consultant Marek Kirjanen, who previously worked as the head of Uus Maa's Harju County department, will now coordinate the work of Estonia's largest real estate unit dealing with residential properties, which mediated approximately 4,000 sales and rental transactions in 2022.

According to Marek Kirjanen, his focus is on managing the residential properties of Uus Maa's headquarters, namely the Downtown, Suburban, Harju County, and Luxum departments dealing with luxury real estate, and on a larger scale, also managing the results of residential property agents across Estonia and recognizing the best performers. "I deal with budget and strategy implementation, ensuring smooth operations, and staffing the team with new young talents," said Kirjanen, who has worked at Uus Maa for the past nine years.

"Currently, the real estate sector is experiencing an interesting and challenging time, and market activity fluctuates from month to month. In the fall, many postponed their home purchase plans, but the uncertain winter was overcome, energy prices stabilized, and consumers are getting used to the higher euribor as well. Therefore, it appears that real estate market activity is slowly picking up again. There is still a gap between the expectations of buyers and sellers, so there is room for negotiation," said Kirjanen.

"Compared to private sellers, developers are still more rigid in price negotiations. While a year ago the prices of new and older apartments were almost converging, now a more realistic 30-percent difference in favor of new apartments has re-emerged. While parking spaces and storage rooms in new developments are quite a standard discount, the sales numbers themselves seem to have not changed," explained Kirjanen.

"Since developers are not rushing to start new projects now, after the sale of completed apartments, there could emerge a shortage of new developments a year from now, similar to the situation during the corona period," Kirjanen predicted.

According to the new head of Uus Maa's residential properties, the spring season for cottages and plots has begun despite uncertain times, and demand is relatively high. "There is quite a lot of interest in finding nice cottages, especially those located on the north coast, in addition to a primary residence for hobbies and recreation, and finding them involves quite a lot of work," added Kirjanen.