The popularity of this type of apartments is returning to the market – he explained the reasons for such a sudden turn

The recovery in demand comes after a sharp drop in demand worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Almost a decade before the pandemic, the demand and supply of such small apartments grew very rapidly. This is not a Lithuanian, but a global trend. As the price of real estate increases, the population grows and cities become denser, compact spaces have become an excellent solution for those who want to live in a convenient place.

The rapidly growing short-term rental market encouraged the developers to offer more and more “studio” apartments: investors wanted to have several or a dozen such apartments near the city center in order to rent them to tourists”, says Edita Gudauskienė, head of sales and customer experience at Omberg group.

According to her, in some countries, during the period 2010-2020, the supply of small apartments increased from a few to 19-20 percent. However, the pandemic year significantly stopped this growth: without tourist flows and business trips, and the need to work from home, the popularity of small spaces fell. Young couples for whom a one-and-a-half-room apartment was perfect for life before the pandemic, forced to work from home, began to move to larger apartments, and the decisions of investors also slowed down.

“We observed the same trend in Lithuania. However, interest is returning from mid-2023: young professionals, couples, and investors are most interested in one-and-a-half-room apartments. We offered this type of housing in our project “Vyšnios”, which is being built in Pilaite, where young people are very active. So we can see that, unlike in the city districts with an older population on average, here “studio” apartments are once again in demand.

US experts started talking about the observed return of demand and supply of small apartments already in 2022, when the real estate market in our country was still frozen by the war caused by Russia in the neighborhood. However, in the last six months, the Vilnius market is also starting to catch up with global trends,” says the company’s head of sales and customer experience.

Space is offset by location

According to the representative of the company, there is nothing to hide that the main reason for the popularity of such apartments is their affordability. Active people who want to live near the city center or conveniently connect with it choose to “sacrifice” space – live in a smaller apartment – due to a good location.

“However, this market developed so rapidly that interior design specialists were quick to offer innovative and truly professional solutions that allow a small space to be employed in such a way that life in it becomes fully comfortable and pleasing to the eye.”

This has become one of the reasons that even older people looking for greater comfort increasingly think about living in a one-and-a-half-room apartment. This trend is particularly encouraged by the socio-economic change that has been observed throughout the Western world for many years, when more and more people of various ages choose not to start a family and live alone,” says the company’s representative.

According to her, open, visually expanding interior design solutions for such apartments, multifunctional furniture, intelligently integrated wardrobes and cupboards, the employment of mirrors, reflective surfaces and natural light, as well as smart lighting solutions today allow to ensure not only practical comfort, but also emotional well-being during living. in a small apartment.

“We talk about it a lot when we collaborate with interior designers on our projects. We aim to create homes that are dear to the heart – ones that are not only comfortable or where everything fits, but also good to return to, safe and peaceful to be in.

I am sure that the returning demand will encourage the market to look for even more innovative solutions to ensure all this, so we will adapt small spaces for quality living even better”, she says.