Who Wants to Rent a Soviet-Era Garage?

Tallinn's Soviet-era garages remain valued rental property, as people love to store hobby vehicles and other belongings there, but increasingly Ukrainian war refugees also want to rent garages.

The garage complexes built in Tallinn's apartment building districts during the Soviet era have over time found use as storage places for hobby cars and other household items, and some have even set up home offices in them. A new trend is the establishment of garage box auto repair shops, with Ukrainian refugees who fled to Estonia for the war typically being the tenants in such cases.

According to Nikita Volkutrub, cooperation partner at Raid & Ko Kinnisvara, old garages have gained strong competition from new mini-warehouses, which are rented out at fairly similar prices. However, someone storing tires, a motorcycle, or a (hobby) car still prefers a garage located in Nõmme, Mustamäe, or Lasnamäe. Nõmme garages are valued more highly, as they are the newest and therefore, according to Volkutrub, also in the best condition.

The main garage renters are now Ukrainian war refugees with an average rent of 80 euros per month. "A very large part of them ask first thing whether the box also has a repair pit, because they want to start repairing cars in the garage. Boxes with pits sell very well, but it's more difficult to rent out a garage without a pit," says Volkutrub. However, many Ukrainians also use garages simply for storing things and their car, while sometimes having already moved from Estonia to elsewhere in Europe.

According to Urmas Uibomäe, acting director of the Kinnisvara24 portal, there are currently over 200 garages available for rent across Estonia. As expected, there are the most listings in Tallinn and Harjumaa.

"The number of listings has remained quite stable in recent years, staying mainly between 200 and 250 ads. For example, this September there were 247 garage listings on the portal, or about 18% more than a year earlier, when there were 209. In September 2024 there were 250, in 2023 there were 228, and in 2022 there were 188 garage listings," says Uibomäe.

Similar to other real estate prices, garage sales and rental prices have risen according to him. True, not everywhere in Estonia. "In Tallinn, the average garage sales price this September was 18,272 euros, which is 6.2% more than a year ago, and the average monthly rent rose from 94 euros to 101 euros, or 7.4%. In Tartu, the average garage sales price rose from 13,120 euros to 14,938 euros, or 13.9%, and the monthly rent from 92 to 94 euros. In Pärnu, on the other hand, the average sales price fell from 15,579 euros to 12,948 euros, or nearly 17%, and the average monthly rent from 89 to 83 euros," says Uibomäe.

According to Uibomäe, there is no reason to believe that interest in garages has decreased. "On the Kinnisvara24 portal, the number of queries made to garage listings has grown compared to a year ago, which shows that interest in garages continues to exist," he says.

According to Volkutrub, the garage market will, however, slowly decline, as the buildings age and rising land tax also takes its toll, since the land plot under garages is large. The tax amount is certainly divided among box owners, but nevertheless many owners prefer to simply sell their garage.