Housing, Real Estate Market | Reaching out to politicians in Oslo:



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Grethe Meier at Privatmegleren believes that Oslo politicians and the real estate industry must come up with an urgent plan to solve the housing pressure in Oslo.

KVADRATUREN (Nettavisen Økonomi): Meier has warned that house prices in the capital may rise by as much as 25-30 percent in the years 2020-2022. Main Reason: There are very few new homes entering the market.

Now he asks for an action plan from the city council to ease price pressure in the capital.

– I’m afraid you don’t understand how seriously they are putting Oslo now. It is one thing that we have fewer people entering the market and even more pressure on prices. But all the research indicates that the real and adequate workforce is not being obtained, because they cannot afford to live there. This is unfortunate for the business community too, says Meier of the prize gallop in Oslo.

– We have a lot of ripple effects here so to be completely honest I think it’s just reprehensible what is happening now, continue.

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Strongest in the country

Figures from Eiendom Norge show that house prices in the capital have risen 7.7% in the last twelve months. It is the strongest price growth in the country. Since 2010, house prices in Oslo have increased by almost 103 percent. This is by far the strongest growth nationwide.

– Oslo was probably expected in September. I probably think I’m holding on to the seven percent that I’ve said that prices in Oslo will go up this year. Normally there is a little drop during the fall, but I think the drop will be less than what we normally see. This is due to high demand, Meier says.

– So the signal for Oslo politicians is?

– Sit down, invite the developers, make an urgent plan of what can be regulated now. Look through your fingers a bit at the layout, so the Planning and Construction Agency doesn’t come up with a draft proposal, and it will be back and forth. Now it burns under our feet, Meier warns.

Unreal

The City Council usually indicates that they have regulated large areas for future housing. The so-called housing reserve is estimated at just over 25,000 units. The largest reserve is the Gjersrud Stensrud area in southeast Oslo, where theoretically there could be 10,000 new houses at some point in the future. The area is 4,000 acres.

– There is no real reserve, and it is just a shell skin behind which they hide. But there are huge areas that are very beautiful and very close to Oslo, says Meier.

– What about the development of Gjersrud Stensrud, do you have any faith in him?

– If I had managed to build infrastructure there and did it correctly with kindergartens, schools and everything that is required. the power It will be an area, but it will be a great investment. So the municipality says that the developer must be added, but the developers do not take that investment.

Stop complaining

Labor politician Siri Gåsemyr Staalesen believes developers should stop complaining and go themselves because it takes a long time for new projects to get approved. Meier doesn’t understand that.

– I hear politicians say that there are developers who complain a lot and are as much to blame as politicians. I do not agree with that.

– Almost all developers who build in Oslo also build in other parts of the country. They say he has no problems with the planning and construction agency in other parts of the country. It is in Oslo where we have it, and this applies to the city hall and the planning and construction agency, says Meier. Get great support from key home builders.

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Stuck

Baard Schumann of the newly created Nordr Eiendom tells Nettavisen that Oslo “clearly” is in a special position. He believes that when planning authorities spend time for the first time, cases at the city hall are “stuck” for a long time before they reach processing.

– Ten years ago, we counted 18 months as the time required for regulation, now we have between 42 and 48 months, says Schumann. He is supported by Selvaag Eiendom’s successor, Rolf Thorsen, who is concerned about the lack of plots in Oslo.

– The municipality regulates very few parcels, the municipality must tolerate that. Sometimes developers can certainly be more pragmatic in the regulatory phase, and there can certainly be better dialogue between developers and authorities.

– But of course, it is silly that developers do not develop plots for more profit. So one has not understood how real estate development develops. Is there really someone who buys a piece of land for a billion kronor and does not build it? Even King Midas couldn’t afford it, says Thorsen.

Click the pic to enlarge.  YOU MUST TOLERATE CRITICISM: Rolf Thorsen at Selvaag Bolig believes Oslo politicians should tolerate criticism for the lack of plots in Oslo.

YOU MUST TOLERATE CRITICISM: Rolf Thorsen at Selvaag Bolig believes Oslo politicians should tolerate criticism for the lack of plots in Oslo.
Photo: (Selvaag Bolig)

More mistakes

Executive Vice President Thorbjørn Brevik of Skanska Eiendomsutvikling says that they also experience that the processing time in Oslo is longer than in many other municipalities, on average 4 to 4.5 years.

– It is natural with a longer processing time in larger cities due to the greater complexity in the planning process. But we also see more case processing errors at the Planning and Construction Agency in Oslo than elsewhere, Brevik says.

Obos CEO Daniel Kjørberg Siraj is somewhat more conciliatory, saying that planning processes are demanding in all large cities due to many intersecting interests. Oslo has special challenges both with progress and with a sufficient volume of regulation.

The online newspaper has confronted the Land and Building Authority with the criticism. The director of the construction affairs department, Hanne Høybach, admits that in the last two years, the agency has had challenges with a large portfolio of construction affairs.

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Incomplete

– That’s why we started a pilot on September 1 to streamline the processing of construction cases. The pilot includes two areas of the city, he says.

According to Høybach, relatively many cases were incomplete when submitted to the municipality, 59 percent in 2019 and 56 percent in 2020, up to and including August.

– We are now rewarding completed applications in case processing. Our goal is to reduce case processing time and avoid this type of duplication of work for both parties. We are analyzing our own routines so that the processes are also more fluid, says the director of the department.

For September, according to Høybach, the trend is promising, but the case processing time as a whole is still affected by the fact that there are many old cases in the portfolio.

Andreas Vaa Bermann, director of the area’s development department, says it is more complex to plan in Oslo than in less densely populated areas. Some of the reasons are that planning in Oslo is complex, where many issues need to be clarified versus other plans.

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Less

But going back to Meier, from a runner’s point of view, what should one build more of?

– Smaller apartments in the center of Oslo, coming immediately.

– And ignore the apartment rule. I think it would have been much better to build less, because what you see in the center of Oslo is that this is where young people want to live. They want to live downtown and stay small. They need to be able to afford it.

– But there is no place in areas near the city center?

– Well then there are areas, and then you can see along the dock area. We managed to expand in the water, we see that it will be incredible.

– And expensive?

– Yes, expensive. But then there may be some of the downtown who move in, so the space opens up. Then there are other areas today that will be available.

Fighting

– Regulating many houses on the outskirts of Oslo, does it solve anything?

– We see that what is regulated in Romerike solves many problems. But the policy that we want to have many families in the center, I am not sure, is so correct.

– What we see is that when we have new buildings downtown, we struggle a lot to sell the larger apartments, while the small apartments disappear immediately, says Meier.



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