VILNIUS — Lithuanian real estate transactions are increasing this year with turnover in the first half of this year up 38.3 percent from the same period last year.

Real estate purchases ground to a halt in Lithuania as those looking to buy either found it hard to get credit or were waiting for the market to bottom out. The market in the capital is believed to have bottomed out sometime during second quarter of the year, but the rest of Lithuania’s real estate is expected to continue losing value.

The Registry Center reported that the increase in sales was more than a third than last year, but still one third less than in 2008. During the first half of the year there were 8,813 real estate transactions, most of them in the country’s cities.

One third of the transactions were made in Vilnius. In the first half of the year, 2,839 apartments changed hands, representing a 35 percent annual increase.

In Kaunas, a 37 percent increase in transactions was recorded with 1,167 housing transactions made. However, the place with the most transactions was in the port city of Klaipėda, which saw a 45 percent increase in trade.

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