Apartment prices in Finland: developments and forecasts

Last week in our blog we discussed house prices. This week, we’ll talk about apartment prices in Finland. 

In some of our previous blogs, we’ve already explained the characteristics of the Finnish apartment ownership system. Thus we won’t go into that here. Instead, we’ll talk about recent trends in apartment prices in Finland and what the apartment market is said to look like in the near future. We’ll also give you some tools you can use to find out the price range in your area of interest.

Recent developments in apartment prices in Finland

According to Statistics Finland, the apartment market was booming in the first half of this year. Real estate agents made 55 % more deals this year than they did in the same period last year. 

The summer slowed this trend a bit but markets were will more active than they were last year. Statistics Finland tells us that in the period from January to July 2021 real estate agents made 30 % more deals than in the same period the previous year. In comparison to 2019, they made 21 % more deals. 

This heightened activity in the housing market also means increases in apartment prices. During the second quarter of 2021, prices of older apartments rose everywhere in Finland. 

In the whole country, the price of older apartments rose by 5.3 % compared to the second quarter of 2020. The increase was 4 % elsewhere in Finland outside the greater metropolitan area of Helsinki. 

In Helsinki, the increase was 6.5 %. That, however, wasn’t the steepest increase. In Espoo and Kaunainen, prices rose by 8.5 %. Vantaa, however, saw a markedly more modest increase. There, the price increase was 2.3 %.

Other large Finnish cities also saw increases larger than the national average. In Turku, for example, prices rose by 6.2 % from the same period the year before. The price increase in Oulu was 6.1 %. 

Tampere saw an even higher increase with a 7.6 % increase. The increase was highest in Lahti. There, apartment prices in the second quarter of 2021 were 9.8 % higher than in the second quarter of 2020. 

Brand new apartments also saw an increase in prices in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same period last year. In the greater metropolitan area of Helsinki, their prices rose by 9.4 %. Elsewhere in the country, the increase was more modest at 3.6 %.

Apartment prices in some select areas of Finland in the second quarter of 2021

We’ve discussed apartment prices in Finland before. In that blog, we gave you the 2016 – 2019 apartment price information by the number of bedrooms for different areas of Finland. We also very briefly touched on price differences within cities.

Below we examine prices by apartment type. We give you the average prices of older homes in rowhouses and apartment buildings in different parts of Finland. These averages are for the second quarter of 2021. They are taken from the Statistics Finland database table 112r which you can find here.

Apartment price forecasts

In a recent look at the Finnish housing market, Nordea’s analyst Juho Kostiainen explains what happened in the Finnish housing market during the Corona pandemic. He also explains what he thinks will happen in the near future.

Normally during a financial downturn, housing sales numbers go down as do prices. That did happen during this economic slowdown. 

Kostiainen explains that the economic slowdown caused by the Corona pandemic was primarily a problem in the service sector and in the consumer market. 

Private consumption in Finland decreased by 5 % in 2020. However, some of those euros Finns didn’t spend on the consumer market, they spent on housing-related activities. This means changing homes, renovating their existing homes, buying a second home, or investing in an apartment. This has increased the demand and thus raised prices.

According to him, apartment prices will continue to go up in the near future. He thinks, however, that the rate of increase will slow down. 

One reason for this is new housing developments. He explains that the rate of development of new housing in the larger Finnish cities is finally catching up with the increase in urban population. Thus there will simply be more apartments available. 

In their recent housing market barometer, Kiinteistömaailma, a Finnish real estate agency, has more detailed forecasts for a number of Finnish cities. Below we will go through some of them. 

Home price forecasts for some individual Finnish cities

Kiinteistömaailma’s analysts think that in Turku home prices (both one-family homes and apartments) will continue to increase by a rate of 3.7 %. Price increases are particularly steep with studio apartments. This is driven by investors who are interested in studio apartments in downtown Turku. 

For Tampere, Kiinteistömaailma forecasts an increase of 3.3 % but there are areas where increases are more pronounced. According to them, such areas are for example the Kauppi area (+4.3 %) and Vuores (3.4 %). As with Turku, studio prices increase more than the prices of other apartment types.

In Jyväskylä, the rate of increase is significantly slower than in Turku and Tampere. Kiinteistömaailma forecasts a rate of +1 % for Jyväskylä. 

The same rate of growth is also in Rovaniemi. 

In Oulu, buyers prefer one-family houses, rowhouses, duplexes, and detached houses. People in Oulu particularly prefer detached houses. Therefore their prices increase more than the price of larger apartments. 

How to find out about apartment prices in Finland

If you are currently in the market looking for a new apartment it pays to be aware of how much apartments go for. There are several tools you can use to find that out.

Statistics Finland publishes annual, quarterly, and monthly data on actual sales prices. For example, you can check the average square meter prices of older apartments by postal code and construction for the whole year here. Or you can look at the price per square meter of new apartments by region, building type, and the number of rooms here. 

Here is the full list of open housing data that Statistics Finland provides. 

These Statistics Finland tools may, however, feel cumbersome. This tool here is much easier and faster to use. This data comes from several Finnish real estate agencies.

Etuovi.com, an internet marketplace for homes, also publishes data on asking prices in different areas of Finland. This one is only in Finnish, though. However, it’s quite straightforward and thus usable after googling a few terms.

Comparing the sales prices to asking prices in your desired area might help you in your bidding. 

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Minna

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Minna knows what expat life is like. She's lived longer and shorter periods in the US, Estonia, China and Germany. She also knows how to recruit foreign talent and how to manage on-boarding effectively. She did that for 10 years. She is passionate about expat coaching and cultural training. She enjoys creating interesting and helpful video and live training courses, blogs, and other content for internationals and their employers. Her particular interests are expat spouses and just workplaces.

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