In 2024, house prices in Norway rose by 6.4 percent.

The average price of a house in Norway was NOK 4,245,124 at the end of December.

- House prices rose by 0.1 percent in December, which gave a strong seasonally adjusted increase of 1 percent. We have to go back to 2016 to find an equally strong development in a December month. Overall, this gives a stronger increase throughout the year than what most people imagined at the beginning of 2024, including us, who had a forecast of 4 percent, says CEO Henning Lauridsen of Eiendom Norge.

- We now end up with an increase of 6.4 percent through 2024. In isolation, this may seem like a lot, but measured against the consumer price index, this is still moderate after several years of decline in real house prices, he says.

- The large sales volume in the second-hand housing market that we have seen throughout 2024 continued in December, and far more second-hand homes have been sold in 2024 than in 2022 and 2023. We link the large volume in the second-hand housing market to the weak new home sales over a longer period of time, says Lauridsen.

Record number of homes listed for sale

In December, 3,755 homes were sold in Norway, which is 23.3 percent more than in the same month in 2023.

In 2024, 99,295 homes were sold in Norway, which is 8.8 percent more than in 2023.

In December, 3,245 homes were listed for sale in Norway, which is 0.3 percent more than in the same month in 2023.

In 2024, 107,283 homes were listed for sale in Norway, which is 3.1 percent more than in 2023.

- The volumes are at a very high level in the second-hand housing market and we have to go back to the pandemic year 2021 to find something similar. There is a record number of homes listed in 2024 and slightly behind the record year 2021 in the number of homes sold. This is evidence of a strong and stable second-hand housing market, says Lauridsen.

It took an average of 73 days to sell a home in December, up from 54 days in November.

The shortest sales time was in Stavanger and the surrounding area with 26 days. The longest sales time was in Tromsø with 109 days.

Strongest in Bergen and weakest in Fredrikstad/Sarpsborg in 2024

The strongest seasonally adjusted price development in December was in Bodø and Fauske with a seasonally adjusted increase of 2.5 percent.

The weakest seasonally adjusted price development in December was in Follo with a decrease of -0.5 percent.

The strongest in 2024 was Bergen with an increase of as much as 13.1 percent. The weakest in 2025 was in Fredrikstad/Sarpsborg with an increase of 1.8 percent throughout the year.

- In 2024, Western Norway and South-Western Norway stand out markedly with a price increase of over 10 percent. In Nordland, Trøndelag, Østfold, Vestfold and Innlandet, the development was much more moderate. The strong growth in Western Norway must be seen in the context of the strong development in the export-oriented business sector here, says Lauridsen.

Housing crisis coming in 2025

Eiendom Norge's forecast for housing prices in 2025 is an increase of 10 percent in Norway and somewhat stronger in Oslo.

- A very important driver behind the increase we expect in 2025 is that we will have a historically low number of completed new homes this year. The housing crisis, which we have long warned about due to the failure in new home sales, is now coming, says Lauridsen.

- In addition, we will finally get interest rate cuts and probably also good real wage growth. The recently announced easing of lending regulations will also provide some stimulus, but our assessment is that the effect will be greatest in medium-sized cities and districts, he says.

- The housing crisis will unfortunately increase in strength through 2025, and the Ministry of Finance, Norges Bank and Statistics Norway underestimated for a long time how big the fall in housing investments has been and will probably be in 2025.

- Politicians must address the housing crisis, and it is particularly the construction costs and the lack of regulation of residential plots that are a problem. We do not need more expensive requirements from the authorities. We need fewer. Low housing construction is a problem, and it will unfortunately create other problems in the labor market and more inequality, he concludes.