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Housing

Vilnius Old Town (Lithuanian: Vilniaus senamiestis), with medieval stone-paved streets, and Užupis have prestigious housing, with apartments featuring views of iconic churches and urban landmarks (particularly Gediminas Tower), enclosed inner courtyards, high ceilings, attics, non-standard layouts and luxurious interiors; Flats in these neighbourhoods may cost millions of euros. Traffic jams, expensive parking, air pollution, high maintenance costs and limitations on renovation, however, also encourage wealthy Vilnians to buy or build private houses in outlying parts of the city such as Balsiai, Bajorai, Pavilnys, Kalnėnai and Pilaitė or the nearby Vilnius District Municipality. Around 21,000 residents live in the Old Town, and 7,000 in Užupis.

Valakampiai and Turniškės are prestigious neighborhoods, with private houses on large lots surrounded by pine forests which are easily accessible from the city centre. Wealthy people and heads of state (such as the president) live there, and most of the larger private houses costs millions of euros. Part of the Žvėrynas neighbourhood has luxurious private houses near Vingis Park, but it also has Soviet-era apartment buildings and wooden houses in poor condition.

Neighbourhoods around the Old Town (Antakalnis, Žirmūnai, Naujamiestis, and Žvėrynas) have a variety of flats and green space, and are popular with middle-class residents. Wealthier people live in a new construction or renovated Soviet-era apartments. The government is supportive of renovation, and reimburses 30 percent or more of the cost. Poorer residents and low-income pensioners, however, foster regionalism.

More-distant neighbourhoods, such as Lazdynai, Karoliniškės, Viršuliškės, Šeškinė, Justiniškės, Pašilaičiai, Fabijoniškės and Naujininkai, have more-affordable housing. Their disadvantages are a longer commute, unrenovated Soviet-era high-rise buildings, traffic congestion and a shortage of parking spaces near older apartments.

The Šnipiškės eldership has received significant investment during the 2010s. The area was first mentioned in 1536, when Grand Duke Sigismund I the Old ordered Ulrich Hosius to build a wooden bridge over the Neris and a suburb developed around the bridge. That century, a building for Muscovite and Tatar messengers was built by the magistrate of Vilnius north of Šnipiškės. The Jesuit Church of St. Raphael the Archangel and monastery and housing for wealthy and middle-class townspeople were built in Šnipiškės during the 18th century. Craftspeople lived on the outskirts, where a smoking-pipe factory, sawmills and a small candy factory were built. The 8-hectare (20-acre) Skansenas neighbourhood, west of the Kalvarijų market, has late-19th-century wooden houses. Nearby Piromontas was built at the same time.

During the 1960s, Šnipiškės was renamed the New City Centre. It had the city's first pedestrian zone and a number of buildings, including the country's largest shopping centre, a large hotel, a planetarium, a museum and a number of ministries of the Lithuanian SSR, were built before 1990. Šnipiškės north of Konstitucijos Avenue was underdeveloped until the early 2000s, when the new Vilnius city municipality building spurred construction of Europa Square with a shopping centre, a 33-story office building and a 27-story apartment building. The former Museum of the Revolution became the National Art Gallery in the late 2000s.

According to economists, the number of transactions and the housing affordability index reached record highs in 2019 because of increased city-residents' income and slowing price increases for flats. One-fourth of residents 26 to 35 years old still live in homes owned by their parents or other relatives, however, the highest percentage in the Baltic states.