Could Norway’s love affair with the mountain cabin be about to cool off?
Prices for mountain cabins are tumbling after a few years of huge demand. A number of factors have contributed to experts predicting that prices will fall further in the future.
Several real estate brokers who specialise in the sale of mountain cabins have said that they have had to reduce listing prices recently, the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv reports.
Christian Haatuft, a property broker in Geilo, said that he slashed the price on several cabins last month. Additionally, Estate agent Stig Svartor at Privatmegleren Lillehammer told the paper that asking prices on some listings would be adjusted downwards by around 10 percent.
Throughout the rest of the year, Svartor expects prices to drop around 10 percent compared to the pandemic peak, when prices skyrocketed due to travel restrictions, followed by another five percent in 2023.
In June, Real Estate Norway (Eindom Norge) reported that cabin prices had risen by 13.7 compared to the year before.
However, a number of factors have dampened the market for cabins since. Firstly rising interest rates have made repayments on mortgages more costly for consumers.
Furthermore, holiday homes are excluded from government support that sees the state pick up 90 percent of energy bills when market prices rise above a certain level. This makes using a cabin more costly than ever, with the high upkeep putting off prospective buyers.
“Old log cabins with poor insulation and large older cabins of 500 square meters without rock heating are very difficult to sell now,” estate agent Petter Birkrem told the paper.
At the end of August, 34.5 percent fewer mountain cabin sales were registered in Norway compared to the same month a year before, according to figures from bank DNB.
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Several real estate brokers who specialise in the sale of mountain cabins have said that they have had to reduce listing prices recently, the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv reports.
Christian Haatuft, a property broker in Geilo, said that he slashed the price on several cabins last month. Additionally, Estate agent Stig Svartor at Privatmegleren Lillehammer told the paper that asking prices on some listings would be adjusted downwards by around 10 percent.
Throughout the rest of the year, Svartor expects prices to drop around 10 percent compared to the pandemic peak, when prices skyrocketed due to travel restrictions, followed by another five percent in 2023.
In June, Real Estate Norway (Eindom Norge) reported that cabin prices had risen by 13.7 compared to the year before.
However, a number of factors have dampened the market for cabins since. Firstly rising interest rates have made repayments on mortgages more costly for consumers.
Furthermore, holiday homes are excluded from government support that sees the state pick up 90 percent of energy bills when market prices rise above a certain level. This makes using a cabin more costly than ever, with the high upkeep putting off prospective buyers.
“Old log cabins with poor insulation and large older cabins of 500 square meters without rock heating are very difficult to sell now,” estate agent Petter Birkrem told the paper.
At the end of August, 34.5 percent fewer mountain cabin sales were registered in Norway compared to the same month a year before, according to figures from bank DNB.
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