Norwegian housing bubble leaking air

News From Norway

Home sales slow down

Real estate brokers are reporting that it's taking longer to sell residential properties, and prices may finally be coming down

The marketing boss for DnB NOR Eiendom, Norway’s largest brokerage chain, told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv on Tuesday that it's taking almost twice as long to sell properties now than it did in January.

The real estate market was so hot last winter that many properties sold after, or even during their first showing, which often are limited to just an hour at a specific advertised time in Norway.

In one example, a home in Oslo's fashionable Holmenkollen area has been on the market since Easter and hasn't sold yet. The sellers recently cut its asking price by NOK 500,000 (about USD 90,000).

Several flats in the popular Majorstuen district of Oslo have also been advertised repeatedly in recent weeks, clearly because they haven't sold.

After news three weeks ago that the Spanish housing bubble has begun to burst real estate in France seems to be following close behind. Now witness Norway. The Norwegian housing market is now paying the same price for record price gains in real estate over the past 5 years.

I sold my house in January but I saw signs then that things weren't as hot as they were six months earlier.

The real estate bubble is an international phenomenon and has played out in other countries for many of the same reasons that it did in the U.S. The end result may only vary by degrees of relative price rises, but will end in a painful downward slide none the less.
Vern