Housing prices slid again during the first month of the new year, sliding 2.2 percent in January on a national average. Real estate brokers’ association Eiendom Norge called it the weakest January in 10 years. Sales and prices often pick up after the Christmas holidays, but not this year. Average prices were down, fully 9.4 […]
Meat and egg producer to cut staff, costs
January 19, 2018
Nortura, Norway’s dominant farmer-owned cooperative for meat, poultry and eggs, has launched a cost-cutting program that also will cut 300 jobs over the next three years. Nortura issued a warning this week that it expects weaker results for 2017. A looming restructuring program at Nortura, which has around 5,500 employees nationwide, “will affect so many […]
Housing prices still scare analysts
December 21, 2017
Housing prices were down another 1.1 percent in November and it hasn’t taken so long to sell a home since the finance crisis in 2008. International credit analysts and economists, however, still think Norwegian housing prices are too high and that a so-called “market correction” will hurt the economy. It now takes an average of […]
Housing prices keep sliding, debt rising
November 30, 2017
State financial authorities at Finanstilsynet report that housing prices are likely to keep falling through 2018 before they start rising again. Prices have fallen more than 10 percent in Oslo since April. “This is a natural chill in the market after the strong price growth we had last year,” said Morten Baltzersen, director of Finanstilsynet, […]
Lobbyists target new cut-rate hair-cutter
November 28, 2017
Lobbying forces led by Norway’s national employers’ organization NHO are promoting new regulations that could snarl the business plan of the cut-rate hair-cutting chain called Cutters. NHO usually supports innovative business ventures like Cutters, but the popular and fast-growing chain poses new competition for the full-service and much more expensive hair salon branch that NHO represents. The […]
New haircut chain challenges salons
November 15, 2017
In a country where a haircut can routinely cost as much as going to the dentist, Norwegians are flocking to a new chain that offers only quick haircuts for a fixed, relatively low price. The arrival of Cutters has left established salons tearing their own hair out over the new competition that they claim violates professional […]
Norwegian prices still shock visitors
August 16, 2017
It’s official: Prices in Norway are 40 percent higher on average than in other EU countries, meaning they’re even higher compared to prices in the Americas and Asia, where they’re generally lower than in the EU. A new survey confirms why visitors can still be shocked after visiting a Norwegian restaurant, grocery store and especially […]
Grocery stores lose out to border trade
July 11, 2017
It shouldn’t come as any surprise, but large grocery stores located just over the border in Sweden are cutting into the revenues of Norway’s smaller, more expensive grocery stores. New figures from the retail employers’ national organization Virke show that Norwegian consumers will likely spend NOK 2 billion in Swedish grocery stores this summer alone. Virke […]
Housing prices fall more than expected
June 6, 2017
The latest statistics for housing sales in Norway show that prices have indeed tumbled during the past month. In Oslo, the price fall was more than expected, and marked the weakest month of May in 14 years. Housing prices fell an average of 0.7 percent from April on a national basis in May, but were still […]
Home prices cool, ‘but not enough’
June 1, 2017
Norway’s notoriously high housing prices, especially in the Oslo area, are showing signs of flattening out in the midst of an unprecedented homebuilding boom. That’s expected to further cool off the red-hot real estate market of the past several years, but experts warn it’s still way too expensive for far too many to buy a […]
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