Jurmala villas, Riga's old town, manors and castles at the price of a flat, a Soviet radar town sold at auction, and why buying property no longer leads to a residence permit.
Latvia is not the first country people think of for record-breaking property, but it has its own extremes: seaside villas in Jurmala, Art Nouveau Riga, country manors and a whole Soviet town that was sold at auction. This article collects what has been published, with the source and date where we have them. None of these properties is offered through us, and prices change fast. We did not find a verified record for a completed sale, so we do not name one.
The priciest: asking prices, not records
Latvia Sotheby's International Realty, a local broker, reports that Jurmala has the country's most expensive property, followed by Riga, with an average above 2,700 euros per square metre in 2024. For the first quarter of 2025 it counted five deals in the segment above one million euros, with a total volume of 9.39 million euros and an average above 4,000 euros per square metre. The same broker counted 32 significant deals above 500,000 euros across central Riga, the Quiet Centre and the Old Town over roughly 18 months to July 2025. These are market studies by a broker, not a list of records.
The highest asking price we found is 8.25 million euros for a 1,221 square metre villa in Jurmala with a pool, spa and home cinema, seen on an aggregator listing without a date. An asking price is not a sale, and the listing may be long gone. An undated ranking of Jurmala apartment deals by the Tribus agency put the top sale at 800,000 euros for a 208.6 square metre apartment in Lielupe, and said no deal reached a million.
Manors and castles: from a flat's price to a few million
Latvia has hundreds of manor houses from the era of the Baltic German estates. What is on offer varies widely:
- A manor house in Lazdona, built in 1876, with 750 square metres on an 11,000 square metre plot, at 138,000 euros in a Russian-language listing updated in July 2026.
- A large estate near Sigulda at 3 million euros, with a plot of about 53 hectares, in an aggregator listing dated April 2026. The listings we saw disagree on the size of the main building, so we give no figure.
- Cirsti castle near Cesis, with 607 square metres on 8.9 hectares, listed by Sotheby's at "price on request".
The cheap end hides the real cost: restoration, heating a large old building and heritage rules. Read the buying guide for foreigners in Latvia for the basic steps before looking at a manor.
A Soviet ghost town sold at auction
The strangest Latvian deal we found is old but memorable. According to reports from 2010 (Baltic Times and AP), the former Soviet radar town of Skrunda-1 in western Latvia went to auction. It had housed about 5,000 people in the Cold War and was abandoned after the Russian military left. The starting price was 153,966 lats and it sold for more than 1.5 million lats, about 2.2 million euros (about 3.1 million dollars, according to AP), for 45 hectares and about 70 buildings, including apartment blocks and a hotel. We name no buyer and have no news of what became of it. Take it as a curiosity from the past, not a current offer.
Islands and lighthouses: we found none
We looked for islands, lighthouses and other unusual objects for sale in Latvia and found no listing, so we do not invent one. If you see one, check who owns the land, whether it lies in a protected coastal zone and whether building is allowed before anything else.
Foreign buyers: what the sources say, and what changed in 2026
For buildings and apartments, older practitioner guides (2006, and a 2021 guide saying the procedure is the same as for EU residents) report no restrictions on foreign individuals and companies. For land the picture is stricter: guides report that non-EU citizens and their companies cannot acquire land in the state border strip, in coastal dune protection zones or in some agricultural and forest areas, and that urban land can need municipal consent. These sources are old and may be out of date, so ask a Latvian lawyer for the current position before you plan to buy land.
The biggest recent change is about residence. Most law-firm and consultancy pages report that a new Immigration Law ended the residence permit for buying property for new applicants from 15 September 2026, with applications filed by 14 September handled under the old rules and existing permit holders keeping their status until expiry. The old route required an investment of 250,000 euros. The sources disagree on dates and on whether an exception was kept for citizens of friendly countries, and we did not see the enacted text, so check the law and the migration office. Do not buy a property in Latvia on the assumption that it will bring a permit.
What this means for a normal buyer
- A record is a curiosity, not a benchmark. Compare price per square metre in the district you want, not a headline villa. See Latvia compared with Estonia and Lithuania.
- A cheap manor is a restoration project. Budget for the building, heating and upkeep, and check heritage protection.
- Check the land register for the owner, charges and the exact plot before paying a deposit.
- Treat residence rules as changing. Confirm them with the official source on the day you decide.
- Ask a local lawyer, chosen by you, about land restrictions if the property includes land.
If you are weighing an unusual object in Latvia, an independent buyer-side adviser can help compare options and bring in a local lawyer. D.H. Realting works from Warsaw as an independent consultant.