Although the decline was especially strong for smaller apartments, the phenomenon did not only concern them.
The decrease is due to rapidly rising energy prices, reference interest rates and the cost of living in general. Finland’s most popular mortgage reference rate, Euribor 12, has risen to 3.3 percent, after last year started almost half a percentage point below zero.
The downward trend is expected to continue this year. At the end of last year, Finland’s largest mortgage lender, OP Ryhmä, predicted that apartment prices will drop by an average of 4-6 percent this year, driven by a 5-7 percent drop in the capital region. Outside the capital region, the drops are not expected to be as dramatic – between 3.5 and 5.5 percent.
The activity of the real estate market also slowed down significantly, as Real Estate Agencies brokered 38 percent fewer apartment sales in December 2022 than in December 2021.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page