- The reason of this website
- The main frauds
- Factors that influence the choice of an apartment
- Apartment prices
1) The reason of this site
Dear foreigner,
many years ago we as well needed to find an apartment to rest from our party nights... at that time you had to arrive here and only then you could start the search for a place to live in. "A desperation!". Internet was just at its beginning: there were no websites to look for an apartment and those few apartments which we've found were in a terrible condition, pure Soviet style. Social networks practically did not exist and you could counted on one hand the foreigners living in Vilnius. The landlords did not know English at all, and almost none of them trusted us. We didn't know where to start our search for a flat, so that at the end we relied on the first estate agency we found, which gave us the "prepacked dud" already ready for the "foreign sucker".
However, at that time,the cost of an apartment or the fees of an agency or the cost of an hotel were so cheap that we were happy anyway. Everything was extremely cheap!
All that doesn't exist anymore. Cause the vertiginous increase of the number of foreigners and the real estate bubble exploded before 2007, today the market has expanded beyond its limits offering numerous new renovated apartments, provoking at the same time an unnatural increase of prices and a substantial increase of the "frauds" perpetuated to foreigners who are still the only ones who can afford to pay such a huge amount of money, considering that the average monthly salary in Lithuania is around 500-600 €.
This website was born from our experience, the frauds we have personally suffered from and those who have indirectly heard, with the intention to help the foreigner to understand something more about making him as much as possible more independent.
2) The main frauds you may face are:
- The deliberate omission by the real estate advertsiments of the costs of gas, electricity, water and heating that sometimes duplicate the monthly rent.
- The total absence of private advertsiments in newspapers, public sites, as Universities or bars, with the consequence that 90% of real estate market is controlled by private agencies, through three main websites entirely managed by them.
- Real estate agencies, even if they work honestly, go along with the requirements of the landlords, omitting or being vague about extra costs, since they take a commission exclusively from the landlords.
- The photos on real estate sites often are modified, hiding what you shouldn't see. They are made with wide-angle with the purpose to cheat about the real dimension of the space. In addition, it is often difficult to figure out how many sleeping rooms there are, or if it's a bed or a sofa bed.
- Hyper-estimate of the market's price of the new apartments.
- Difficulty to find apartments with more than 3 bed-rooms.
- You need to know that the phrase "three-room apartment" does not mean that this has three bedrooms. It can have one bedroom, a kitchen and a living room.
- Difficulty for a foreigner to "to read well and decode" what is really written in one of the many advertsiments on the internet.
3) The choice of the flat
Searching for a flat you should take into consideration the following factors:
- the price should not be calculated on the basis of m2
- type of heating
- distance to the city center
- electric cooker or gas
- cost of water per m3
- type of property
- distance to the bus stop
First, the price.
Obvious. An apartment in the city center, although the hyper-estimate, without a doubt costs less than in other European countries. Nevertheless there are many things to know. In Lithuania, for historical reasons related to its architecture and the Soviet short-sightedness of modern architects, 90% of the apartments built before 1990 are mainly made of three rooms, while the apartments of new generation were not designed to rent to students, therefore, it's very difficult to find an apartment with more than 3-4 single rooms, it is rather possible to find an apartment of 200-300sqm with a 30m2 kitchen or a living-room where you can also play football.
So forget about the idea to rent an apartment for 5-7 people to minimize the costs for heating.
The best solution is surely to take an apartment where each person could have around 25m2 of the total surface of the flat.
Why do I say this?
Because the central heating and hot water is the biggest problem in Lithuania
Ex:
Apartment # 1: 3 bedrooms and 70m2. cost 2100Lt = 30Lt/m2 => 700Lt/person
Apartment # 2: 3 bedrooms and 120m2. cost 2300Lt = 18Lt/m2 => 795Lt/person
In case of the first apartment the total costs for the expenses of maintenance can reach 600-900Lt (180-270€) for month during the winter period (October-April)
In case of the second apartment the total costs for the expenses of maintenance can reach 1200-1600Lt (300-450€) for month during the winter period (October-April)
Consequently, although the second flat is actually less expensive looking at m2, at the end of the fair, it is more expensive than the first one.
Apartment # 1: 2100 + 600 / 900Lt = 2700/2900Lt => 930Lt/person
Apartment # 2: 2300 +1200 / 1600Lt = 3500/3900Lt => 1250Lt/person
The heating
It is one of the hottest topics from the political point of view, because the question is directly linked to the complicated relationship between Russia and Lithuania, which makes Lithuania the most expensive country in Europe per m3 of gas and Kw/ h of electricity.
Usually the agencies or websites in English omit the cost of heating, showing you the bill of previous years, "forgetting" to tell you that the energy's cost increases in Lithuania by 15% in a year, sometimes even 50%, as it happened in 2012, when a m3 of hot water is went up from 12Lt to 25Lt.
When you choose keep in mind that the heating can be of 3 types:
Central (the most expensive)
Independent (the cheapest if managed properly)
Wood stove (certainly the cheapest, but it's not worth the trouble)
The cost of heating also depends from square meters of the apartment and
of the zone of the city. In few words: closer you are to the old town and bigger is your apartment, more you'll have to pay.
Besides note that most of all the apartments are centrally heated. Only those ones built after 2000 or those renovated from top to bottom are independent heated. With the exception of few buildings, 70% of the new apartments are quite outside the old town.
The distance to the city center
The price is directly proportional to the distance to the city center with some differences highlighted below. However you should take into consideration that there are not buses that runs through the old town (the red zone).
Red zone:> 30Lt/m2 1€= 3,44Lt
Yellow Zone: 20-30Lt/m2
Blue Zone: 15-25Lt/m2
Pink zone: 14-20Lt/m2
Black area: <15Lt/m2
Electricity
In Lithuania you pay a lot, about 0.50 Lt/ Kwh (0,15 €), the same as in West Europe, although the average of salory is about half. Microwaves, washing machines, kettles, elttric kitchens, washing dishes-machine, fluorescent lights has deeep impact on the final price.
Hot water
In Lithuania it is another sore point, and it really expensive, about 25Lt/m3 (7€), so that the number of persons and number of daily showers results decisive in the final cost of the bill.
Type of apartment
There are many different types of apartments. They range from those Soviet-style not-renovated (under 20Lt/m2 ) to modern half-rennovated (around 30Lt/m2), finishing with those hyper-modern, over 40Lt/m2, a luxury for Lithuanians but a decent apartment in terms of European average.
Apartment prices:
It's difficult to draw a line since the enormous differences between new, renovated and old apartments.
1 room apartment around 35m2 in the center never cost less than 800LT
2 rooms apartment (kitchen + dorm) in the center never less than 1200Lt
3 room apartment (kitchen + 2 bed rooms) never less than 1600Lt
4 rooms (kitchen + 3 dorms) never less than 2000Lt
