OP and Nordea: The search for housing loans has picked up – there was a huge change in the sale of studio apartments in July

Finance group According to OP, the number of mortgage applications has increased in the summer so that July was the busiest month since August 2022.

“In July, the OP group received clearly more mortgage applications than last year. August also seems to have started busier than last year,” the company’s press release says.

In July, the number of mortgage applications received by the OP Group increased by 14 percent from a year earlier and by 17 percent from the number of applications in June.

The increase in housing sales can be seen particularly strongly in the sale of studio apartments.

In July, through the real estate broker OP Kodi, 19 percent more apartments and real estate were sold than at the same time last year, and the sale of used studios grew by as much as 62 percent.

“This is without a doubt a positive signal, but we still don’t dare to talk about a turnaround in the housing market”, OP group’s manager responsible for personal customer financing and housing services One Nurmi says in the announcement.

He thinks that the interest rate cut by the European Central Bank ECB in June may have triggered many people for whom the purchase of an apartment has been relevant for a longer time.

The most common mortgage reference interest rate for Finns is the 12-month Euribor, which has fallen rapidly in recent weeks.

Based on preliminary data, the OP group has also received approximately six percent more home loan applications than last year in August.

First-time home buyers have also returned to the market, the OP group says.

Housing trade the pick-up was also visible at Nordea. The bank said on Friday that 16 percent more mortgages were taken out from Nordea in July than a year ago.

In July, more loans were applied for than at any time in January–June. According to Nordea, there were 26 percent more mortgage applications than in the first half of the year on average.

“Now there are clear signs that the housing market is about to turn and we are seeing signs of a pick-up in housing sales all over Finland,” says Nordea’s director of personal customers in Finland Jani Eloranta in the bulletin.

According to Nordea, housing investors are also returning to the market. This can be seen especially in Uusimaa and many other growth centers.