Price index for existing dwellings

Price is the registered purchase price of the dwelling. For co-operative dwellings, both deposit and joint debt is included in the price. Useful floor space is the floor area measured within the outer walls, excluding cellars, non-habitable attics and, in multi-dwelling houses, common spaces. The statistics is devided into two types of ownership; freeholder and housing co-operatives

Name: Price index for existing dwellings

Topic: Prices and price indices

Division for Housing, Property, Spatial and Agricultural Statistics

Norway is divided in eleven geographical regions, of which four are cities.

Oslo and Bærum

Stavanger

Bergen

Trondheim

Akershus without Bærum

Vestfold, Telemark and Viken without Akershus

Innlandet

Agder and Rogaland without Stavanger

Møre og Romsdal and Vestland without Bergen

Trøndelag without Trondheim

Northern Norway

In addition, average square metre prices are published quarterly for the counties and yearly for the municipalities.

The house price index is published quarterly, about 13 days after the end of the relevant quarter.

The house price index reported to Eurostat.

Data on dwelling level are stored as text files on Unix.

The purpose of the house price index for existing dwellings is to provide price statistics for the housing market. The index has been published since the first quarter of 1991.

The index is used by the public sector (the Ministry of Finance, Norges Bank, etc) and the financial industry. It is also used by people with an interest in the housing market, for instance private persons, research institutions and the media. The index is an important indicator for sellers and buyers of dwellings as well as for valuation and estate agencies.

No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 08 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given in the Statistics Release Calendar.

The Norwegian Association of Real Estate Agents (NEF) produces house price statistics, which monitor the national and regional prices on a monthly basis. The differences in the price increases are mainly caused by different methods of weighting.

Central Bank of Norway has a house price index for the period 1819 - 2012.

Not relevant.

House price index is regulated through EC 93/2013.

The house price index measures the development of the value of the total housing stock in Norway, based on price information from dwellings sold on the free market.

From 2012 we began to exclude sales of new dwellings. This is between 1-3 per cent of the observations.

FINN.no cooperates with most important real estate agencies in Norway. Property Value (Eiendomsverdi) prepares monthly price statistics for Property Norway (Eiendom Norge) based on data for FINN.no.

All sales registered by FINN.no.

FINN.no sends electronic reports of their sales monthly.

Machine controls ensure that dwellings with particularly small or large useful floor spaces or very high or low square meter prices are not included in the calculation of index.

Sub-indices for three housing classes and eleven regions are calculated by using the hedonic method. These 33 sub-indices are weighted into total indices for each region and for the country as a whole. The weights are the estimated total value of housing stock of each housing class and within each region.

House price index seasonally adjusted.

In the square meter price section, numbers based on fewer than 10 observations are not published. This typically applies to the house types of row houses and flats, in the more sparsely populated counties.

Changes in data collection Until the first quarter of 2002, the price index for second-hand dwellings was produced using a quarterly survey. A questionnaire was sent to all registered purchasers of second-hand freeholder dwellings. Information from the survey was combined with information collected from the Ground Property, Address and Building Register (GAB).The compilation method was the same, but the number of explanatory variables in the regression model was more comprehensive.

New weighting The method for calculating weights has been changed twice since Statistics Norway started compiling the house price index in 1991. From 1991 to 1997, the total number of sales in each category was used as a weight. From 1997 to 2002, each category's share of the total housing stock was used as a weight. Finally, from 2002, each category's share of the value of the housing stock is used as a weight. The change in 1997 implies that regions with relatively few sales are given a stronger weight and the change in 2002 implies that regions with high price levels are given a stronger weight. From 2009 the country is devided into more regions. This means that the subindices are weighted together on a lower regional level than before.

Change in floor space concept Until 2002, utility floor space was used to calculate square metre prices. Following the change in data collection in 2002, useful floor space is used. Square metre prices are therefore not comparable before and after the first quarter of 2002.

Errors can occur during the data registering and processing done by the data suppliers (FINN.no, Notar AS and NBBL).

The sample covers about 60 per cent of all dwelling-sales on the open market. Systematic skewness is still possible in the sample, regarding housing standard and location.

The hedonic model used in the compilation of the house price index and does not adjust for housing standard. The index is therefore expected to overestimate the price increase.