In Canada the average home is past $1m now.
I live in Victoria BC and I am within the top 10 percent of earners in my city, but I do not even make enough money to get a loan for my own 1 bedroom apartment. In short, the housing situation is beyond fucked. More than half my income goes straight into my landlord’s pocket who laughs all the way to the bank.
I have family in Vaasa and I have just looked at real estate listings there for the first time. A detached house can be had for 100k euro? How in the world is this possible?
I found an apartment in Rovaniemi that is worth less than my car? How?? https://asunnot.oikotie.fi/myytavat-asunnot/rovaniemi/17108637
Even in middle of nowhere Northern Canada this would be easily 20 times that price.
Do Finns view housing as an investment? In Canada, we are brainwashed to buy real estate since birth and many people strive to buy multiple properties solely to make profit renting them out. I am guessing Finland has ways to deter this from happening?
If I moved to Finland via my spouse (polish), would we be able to actually own a home here? I’ve been starving in Canada for so long and the thought of owning my own place is unfathomable to me. Are there rules against non-Finns owning real estate? I have so many questions and would love to hear what you think!
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Your example is “asumisoikeusasunto”: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asumisoikeusasunto
The price shown is for “right to live” in that apartment, in addition one pays a monthly fee. So kind of renting.
The fee is 700€ / month in your case, add water and electricity.
Non-EU citizens need a permit from ministry of defense to buy real estate (not needed for flats etc). That’s not really road block for normal real estate, just an extra step. They have blocked some transactions with Russians eg near Rovaniemi airport, which is also home of the Lapland Air Command. You can try spot radars and underground structures from Google maps to get idea why they don’t want that kind of neighbors.
Polish citizens (and other EU nationals) are free to buy estate in Finland.
Please note that very cheap houses are usually in areas with no jobs and poor public transportation and poor public services. If you look near Helsinki the prices can be considerably higher, as well as in bigger cities like Tampere and Turku (but less than Helsinki). Also some houses that have electric heating can be very expensive to live in nowadays.
Practically all houses and apartments for sale in Finland are listed in either [Oikotie](https://www.oikotie.fi) or [Etuovi](https://www.etuovi.com).
Go to Saskatchewan and to Prince Albert. You will see houses at similar prices to Finland. Vaasa and Rovaniemi are tiny. Rovaniemi is in the middle of nowhere with not that many prospects. Vaasa is less so but still a small city/town. What if you moved to a small town in Canada with little job prospects instead? You could have the easy version of moving to Rovaniemi or Vaasa that way 🙂
I also don’t think you have been searching the right types of real estate. Here are detached houses in Vaasa https://asunnot.oikotie.fi/myytavat-asunnot?pagination=1&locations=%5B%5B411,6,%22Vaasa%22%5D%5D&cardType=100&buildingType%5B%5D=4&buildingType%5B%5D=8&buildingType%5B%5D=32&buildingType%5B%5D=128
Capital area houses seem to be more around 400-600k€. For row houses maybe down to 300k further out. As others stated there’s this right-to-live arrangement where you only pay 15% of the price and then have to pay monthly stuff but your lease can’t just be terminated. Then sometimes the property on which the houses are built is not owned and instead only leased from the city, that seems to be more the case for blocks of flats and row houses.
Finland has a very low population growth, basically only the large population centers around Helsinki, Tampere, maybe Oulu have significant growth. Vaasa is basically at +-0 population over the last 5 years. Canada is an extreme case with high population growth and high property speculation/investment.
If you live where no one wants to be its quite cheap.
In growth areas housing is nor affordable.
It’s only cheaper in here because Finland is poorer and has less rich people and worse industry as Finland is smaller country
You’re looking at what’re large towns or small cities in Finland, but are very small places in the grand scheme of things. They’re also quite far (especially Rovaniemi) from the economic hub of Finland and the region seeing significant population growth, which is basically the Helsinki-Turku-Tampere triangle in the SW.
People do view apartments as investment in Finland, and there are certainly complaints about cost of housing in Finland — especially so in Helsinki. That said, it’s the same or in many cases worse in similar sized cities everywhere in “western” Europe (historical/economical definition).
However as far as I know, the cost of housing crisis is especially bad in Canada compared to just about anyplace else. And home ownership in Helsinki, from what I understand, is far more achievable compared to Vancouver. In Helsinki region, you can get family sized homes (2-3 bedrooms) starting at maybe 250 k€ for older apartments (in suburbs, 2x or more in downtown) and detached houses from 400 k€ or so.
Finland doesn’t have chinese elite using its housing market as a bank.
The cynic in me sees how relaxed and naive the finnish housing laws are and in my lifetime we’re going to see it being abused so hard in a way we can’t imagine fully now.
Finland has more affordable housing because of government subsidized mortgages, financial ties within EU, and quality standards for the construction industry.
As for apartments, there are no rules against foreign nationals. If you buy land or house in a remote area, there are security checks, but almost every request is approved.
I got three bedroom flat in Helsinki city area (kantakaupunki) for 400k. I pay 400 in fees pcm in addition to paying off my debt. And then there’s been few renovations done in the building, for which the costs are divided between flat owners. That’s some 20k extra in debt.
It isn’t as crazy as in some places, but big cities and well maintained houses/flats are expensive. Sure, you can get a hut in the middle of nowhere for cheap, if that is what you want. I have considered it too tbh. By selling my current place I could buy a cozy older house from a small village somewhere and have a fraction (or even none) of the debt I currently have. But there might not be schools, commute would be significantly longer (and would require a car), my special needs kid might not get all the help he gets in a big city (or they would be further away, currently his therapist’s office is 15 minute walk away) and all that.
There are also houses worth over 500k euro, up to millions in Helsinki area. I prefer living in my small town, because house prices are decent and travel to Helsinki is an hour 20 minutes. Might get shorter if they ever manage to build that new track.
Ps. Maybe other finns can guess where I’m living (x
Houses only appear cheap in finland to a canadian or an american because your salaries are much higher in there.
The median salary of a finn is around 3000 euro per month before taxes and 2200 after them, and a new no-frills 120-130 square meter house costs something like 300-400 grand. And even more in near helsinki or tampere or such. So that’s 20-25 years mortgage to a median salary couple.
And realistically even that 3 grand salary is considered to already be pretty good and not so easy to achieve in the more rural parts. I’d say you have to live near big cities to get it, and in those places houses are more expensive.
So you know, it’s not all roses. A lot of local people are struggling with the price of everything in here. A good symptom of this is that hardly any locals take vacations in finland because it’s just so expensive. Like, the hotels in lapland during ski-season is mainly full of rich foreigners and so on. They’re just too expensive for the locals.
Also, if you’re coming from any bigger city, say vancouver or whatever, be prepared to be bored to death. Even our biggest cities are very modest in comparison, there’s no cool night clubs and or scenes or restaurants or other lively entertainment, and people in general are pretty closed off. What most people do here is work and watch tv in the evening or maybe have “house parties” with friends.
So, be warned.
Disclaimer: I think finland is a pretty decent country all in all, but everything in here costs a goddamn fortune and the living standard of a normal person is closer to poland or whaever than it is to the states or canada. Many people just refuse to admit this (probably because they’ve been indoctrined to the whole “finland is the best country in the world”-nonsense).
As ever, it depends. A lot.
In addition to all things mentioned here (I did not read all of them thoroughly, though), is that the Finnish tend to buy a house or a flat for themselves to live in. When compared to Middle Europe, where people buy house for renting them, in Finland that is quite uncommon, especially in smaller towns like Vaasa or Rovaniemi. Of course there are some, but speaking in general.
1 – You’re looking at prices for the right to rent. Think of it like a very large deposit – you’ll get it back after you leave the place. And that’s in Rovaniemi – do you really want to live there on a permanent basis?
2 – There’s basically no country in the world where houses aren’t the primary, or one of the main storages of value/investment vehicles. House ownership rates in Finland are actually higher than in Canada.
3 – Houses in Poland will be substantially lowered price than comparable houses in Finland – of course, because Polish wages are lower. But that’s something you need to consider – will you be able to keep your Canadian level of income while in Finland?
4 -If you’re adjusting for local income, you should just try dribble downt to US – many American states – out of big coastal cities -have some of the most affordable on a price to income ratio.