Riga gets housing villages

RIGA - Perfume maker Kolonna hopes to experience the sweet smell of success from a construction offshoot that is building single-family residences for the upper-middle-class buyers who can afford a healthy down payment.

Kolonna has an economically priced house for a family of three to four persons, said Andris Ravins, for about 30,000 lats ($50,000). The homes have central heating. Choosing a home without an attached garage will lower the cost about 2,000 lats. All a person needs to qualify for the neighborhood is money.

"Regardless of the ethnicity of the buyers, these houses offer fulfillment of the Latvian dream," he said.

Purchase plans are democratic. Buyers need only to be able to afford a 20 percent to 25 percent down payment and to pay installments of 300 to 400 lats per month to cover both land and house costs. Latvian banks Unibanka, Maras Bank and Hansabank will finance the balance for 10 years.

Also available are expandable homes in Latvia's first modern gated communities. These floor plans can include options: sauna, pool, decor, furnishings or an ell to expand floor space. A buyer may want his house on more than one lot. Such a project in Silezers has 19 homes on 23 plots of land.

Plans are underway for a similar group in the woods of Biekernieku district in Riga's outskirts. The price for the village-style community houses works out to approximately 260 lats per square meter for the dwelling, covering about 144 square meters, and about 3.5 lats per square meter for the land.

The housing materials and designs have to stay within some parameters to stay within the price range, Harijs Dzirkalis, the project architect said, but there is still room for buyers to express themselves.

"Some buyers and I see eye-to-eye. I have designed one house that I fell in love with," Dzirkalis said. "Other people have good ideas, but they are their own. We are guided by their requests. With flexibility in materials and design, we can accommodate them. Some want to pick colors and let us pick the furnishings. Others want to make selections in each category. That is possible."

To stay around the 30,000 lat price, the developments have to be carved out of forests where land is inexpensive, but there are few stores. Dzirkalis thinks that demand will develop small enterprises.

According to the Central Statistics Bureau, at least 70 percent of Latvians, make 100 lats or less a month and are unable to make monthly house payments of 300 to 400 lats. About 600,000 of those with less than 100 lats are pensioners, Kolonna head Uldis Cipsts said. He sees the market in young families making 500 lats a month upward.

"Most of them are aged 25 to 40 and are either individual entrepreneurs with small or medium-size companies or are employees of large companies," he said. "Most are young families with two people working."