Foreign Nationals Have Begun Conducting Real Estate Transactions More Actively
Against the backdrop of recent years' crises, much has been said about how the activity of foreigners in Estonian investments and the real estate market has drastically decreased. This is true. However, it is now becoming clear that changes are taking place.
Looking at the statistics from the Land and Spatial Bureau's transaction data, it is clearly evident that while 3,555 foreigners made purchases in 2021, a decline began in 2022, with the bottom reached in 2024, when 2,543 foreigners made purchases on our market. A similar decline occurred among foreign sellers as well. While 3,797 sellers conducted transactions in 2021, in 2024 this number was 2,770. In percentage terms, the number of buyers declined by 28.5% over the observed period, while the number of sellers decreased by 27%.
The primary reason for the notable declines in the number of foreign buyers and sellers is the instability created by war and the economic situation, which has also led to a decline in the real estate market. Buyers no longer dared to invest so much money here, and sellers could not sell because there were few buyers.
Last year brought market revival
In 2025, a quiet phase of economic and market recovery began, which continues to this day and will likely continue for some time longer. During this period, the real estate market has also become somewhat more active, and the number of foreigners is also on an upward trend in its transaction statistics.
Last year, there were 2,659 buyers from abroad, while there were 2,802 sellers. The increase compared to 2024 is 4.6% and 1.2% respectively. The percentages are small and characterize the current state of the market very well. But recovery it is nonetheless.
More sellers than buyers
An attentive reader has certainly already noticed that there are more foreign sellers than buyers. The reasons for this are not only related to the security situation of recent years, although it has an important impact, but rather this trend has been much longer in the making.
First, the reasons are generational. Very many people, particularly Finns and Swedes, who bought real estate here in the 1990s and during the boom, have reached the point where they need to begin realizing their property. There is interest in buying among younger Scandinavians as well, but it is no longer nearly as great as among the older generation. There are more options and interest is being shown in southern Europe as well.
Second, there are purely business reasons. Increasingly, more interesting countries have emerged where real estate is cheaper and investment opportunities abound. This has led to investors shifting their focus away from our region and some of them have sold property here to buy something new elsewhere. Our own people are also discovering more and more new places to invest their money.
The most active are the Finns
The most active foreign real estate buyers over the years have been Finnish residents. However, there has been a change in the second position: before the start of the full-scale war, Russian residents provided competition to our northern neighbors, but since 2023 their numbers have dried up and Ukrainians have taken the second place for themselves. German residents are stably in third place.
Among sellers from other countries, Finland has been in first place throughout the observed years, Russia in second place, and Sweden in third place.
In conclusion
The market has become somewhat more active along with the improvement of the economic situation, and as a result, citizens of foreign countries are also more active here. People have begun to get used to the current situation and are trying to continue their activities from where they were left off in the meantime.
In the future, we will naturally depend on what happens in our nearby region and globally as well, but in the big picture, against the backdrop of current developments, one can nevertheless see a quiet improvement in confidence and growing courage to make investments.
