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Introduction

The particular overview of the real estate market has been prepared by the team of United Baltic and provides the possibility to estimate overall situation of the Real Estate Market of Riga and its suburbs as well as the tendencies and development dynamics of the particular sphere of business and to compare the results of this year with the data of 2004 and earlier periods. The particular overview is based on data provided by: monthly prepared by United Baltic team and publicly available overviews, the information, provided by United Baltic Real Estate specialists, United Baltic Database, information provided by partner Real Estate Agencies, the information provided by the Central statistics bureau, "Eurostat" data, the data of the bank of Latvia, the information prepared by Land book of Riga and its regions, the data provided by the Council of Jurmala and the Agency of development of Riga and its regions, the data provided by the Council of Riga and its regions. The overall information about Riga and its suburbs.

Territory:

The territory of Riga is 307,17 square km, including:

Inhabited areas - 67,00 sq.km or 21,8% of the total area of Riga

Industrial areas - 52,45 sq.km or 17,0%

Streets and Roads - 24,64 sq.km - 8,0%

Parks-57,54 sq.km-19,0%

Water- 48,50 sq.km-15,8% The total area of the Region of Riga is 3059 sq.km, including:

Land that is used for agricultural needs - 26%

Forests - 54%

Water-20%

Inhabitants:

There are 747,2 thousands of people, who live in Riga. From them 333,3 thousands are males, 413,9 thousands are females. The density of inhabitants is 2434 people for 1 sq. km.

In the Region of Riga (administrative centre is situated in the capital - Riga) live 940 thousands

inhabitants, including 422 thousands of males and 518 thousands of females.

In the Region of Riga (without capital) live 146,7 thousands of inhabitants, from them 47% are males, 53% are females. The density of inhabitants is 47 people for 1 sq.km. 37% live in cities, 63% in the countryside.

The area of Jurmala is nearly 100 sq. kilometres, including 36,7% of forests, 11,3% of waters.

At the beginning of 2004 there lived 55,4 thousands of inhabitants in Jurmala, including 24,8

thousands of males and 30,6 thousands of females. The density of inhabitants is approximately 555 for 1 sq. km. Totally in Riga, Jurmala, and the district of Riga live approximately 950 thousands of inhabitants.

The major event which influences the economical and political situation in Latvia is joining the

European Union. Before Latvia joined the EU it was attractive for both local and foreign investors. The rapid development of economy, low crediting rates, and the predominating opinion of the broad layers of society that the prices will go up after Latvia will join the EU were the main factors why both the investment market and consumer's market received so many investments.

The Market of investments was overloaded both by local and foreign investors money, in majority - short term investments with a hope to get short term benefits. In Latvia, as in other transitional States, the market of real estate is predominating area of investments, because the market of securities is not yet developed.

The economy of Latvia is influenced by the two global factors that are superior to the influence of Latvia:

1) Low prices for the financial resources in the World's Markets

2) ASV dollar's lowering rates in comparison with other currencies