Estonia, Good for Business, Latvia, Real Estate

"With our assistance, two strong Latvian real estate firms -- Balsts, which mainly deals with private clients and offers the appraisal service, and RBA, which focuses on commercial real estate -- merged and will be offering their services in Latvia under the 1Partner brand and name in the future. Effectively a merger was conducted of strong competences in real estate appraisal and residential and commercial real estate," 1Partner Kinnisvaragrupp co-founder and partner Tanel Tarum said.

Tarum said the main aim of the expansion was to increase the scope and capability of the company's commercial real estate services. 

"Where the brokerage of homes is mainly a local activity, corporate clients buy, sell and manage real estate internationally and therefore want to get a service in all the Baltic countries," Tarum said.

The manager of 1Partner Latvia, Sigita Rubina, said that as a result of the small size of the Baltic markets developers and investors often viewed them as a single entity. 

Tarum said that most real estate companies in Estonia not having such capability allows 1Partner to stand apart and offer more services. He said the strategic goal for 1Partner was to be represented in all the three Baltic markets with a company of their own by the beginning of 2020. 

The real estate agencies of 1Partner now employ 20 people in Latvia and over 70 in Estonia.

1Partner Kinnisvaragrupp, established in Estonia in 2004, is made up of the property appraisal and sales company 1Partner Kinnisvara, property development and investment consulting company 1Partner Advisory, construction company 1Partner Ehitus, and property management company 1Partner Haldus. Sales of 1Partner Kinnisvaragrupp in 2018 amounted to 7.3 mln euros.