Price index for existing dwellings

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
Østfold, Buskerud, Vestfold and Telemark
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 some municipalities) and yearly for some municipalities.

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

The house price index is transfered to Eurostat.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

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 1992.

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 statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

In addition to Statistics Norway, Eiendomsverdi AS also compile house price indices. Their indices are calculated on a monthly basis. The differences between the price indices are mainly due to different methods of weighting.

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

Act of Offical Statistics and Statistics Norway (Statistics Act) from 2019-06-21 § 10, decision on the duty to provide information and § 20, compulsory fines

House price index is regulated through EC 2020/1148.

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

The sample is all dwelling transactions registered by FINN.no (appr. 70 per cent of total sales).

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.

Collected data are subject to confidentiality specified in the Statistics act, §7.

In the square meter price section, numbers based on fewer than 10 observations are not published.

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 From 2025, internal utility floor space, BRA-i (ref. NS3940: 2023) is used to calculate square meter prices. From 2002 to 2024 useful floor space was used to calculate square metre prices. The square meter prices are therefore not directly comparable before and after the turn of the year 2024/2025.

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.