Collectively, rental prices in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger and Sandnes increased by 7.7 percent last year. This is shown by Eiendom Norge’s up-to-date metropolitan index, which is based on data from FINN and professional letting agents. Student at the University of Oslo, Sofie Karlgård is among the who have noticed that rental prices have increased recently. – I rent together with a friend. It is quite expensive. The total rent is 16,800 divided by two, and then there is electricity, internet and such in addition, she says. Karlgård works alongside his studies to get things going. – You have to have a job on the side then. So I have it, but you also have to try to balance the amount of part-time work against the time you spend at school and reading. Law student Sofie Karlgård works alongside her studies to make the week go by. Photo: Anders Eidesvik / news The biggest increase can be found in the oil cities in the south-west and in the capital, where prices have risen by almost a tenth in the past year. In Bergen, the percentage increase was less than half as large. In Trondheim, rental prices fell last year. In 2022, both Bergen and Trondheim had significantly greater percentage growth than Oslo and Stavanger and Sandnes. How much did rental prices increase in 2023 Stavanger and Sandnes had the strongest rental price development in the last year with 9.3 per cent followed by Oslo with 9.2 per cent. In comparison, prices in Oslo increased by 6.5 per cent and prices in Stavanger and Sandnes by 4 per cent in 2022. In Bergen, the increase was 3.3 per cent in 2023. In 2022, rental prices there increased by 13.5 per cent. In Trondheim, rental prices fell by 2.7 per cent in 2023 after an increase of 13.6 per cent in 2022. Together, rental prices in the four large cities rose by 15.2 per cent in 2023 and 2023. In comparison, they grew by 15.8 per cent from 2013 to 2021. Source: Eiendom Norge Rental prices fell in Trondheim last year. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB I think prices will continue to rise Last year the growth was even slightly greater than the record growth of 7.5 per cent in 2022. If you combine the last two years, rental prices in the big cities have increased almost as much as the previous ten years, says CEO of Eiendom Norge Henning Lauridsen. – We are putting behind us two years of historically large growth in rental prices, he says. And even if the prime minister and the governor of the central bank believe that interest rates have peaked, rental prices will continue to rise, Eiendom Norge believes. – There is every reason to believe that we will continue to see price growth in the future because rental prices are high and we also know that we have little supply of new landlords at the moment because it is not profitable to rent out more places, says Lauridsen . But it is not just tenants who have become more expensive, he underlines. – The landlords have received much higher costs, higher interest rates, higher taxes and are exposed to inflation. Then they actually have two choices: either to raise the rent or to stop renting. The head of Eiendom Norge explains last year’s drop in rental prices in Trondheim by the fact that there was exceptionally strong price growth there last year and that there were approximately 45 percent more houses for rent in Trondheim at the end of 2023 than at the end of 2019. – The last two years under one price growth is still strong (a scant 11 per cent). In addition, the supply of rental housing is large, he says. Sara Midtgaard, senior economist at Handelsbanken markets. Photo: Johan B. Sættem The reasons behind the rise in rental prices Senior economist at Handelsbanken, Sara Midtgaard points to population growth, lack of housing in the cities, higher interest rates and wage growth as reasons why rental prices rose last year. At the same time, fewer rent out. – We actually have a situation where the demand is high, while the offer is becoming more limited, she says. An important reason for the population growth is high immigration, among other things by Ukrainian refugees, says Midtgaard. – These will initially want to rent and not own, so it puts more pressure on the rental market, she says. At the same time, there are quite a few rental homes, especially in the big cities, the economist says. According to Midtgaard, several landlords are now losing money by having rental homes, as the rental income is not high enough to cover the running expenses, such as interest costs and other costs of having a rental property. – More people sell away from these homes, and that limits the offer even more, she says.
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Historically large price growth in the rental market
