Newly released numbers from Statistics Norway show that it costs a fortune for students in Oslo to have a roof over their heads. The rent is still increasing.

– After the semester start last fall I’ve heard several stories from students about bidding rounds at apartment viewings, says leader of the Student Parliament (SP), Mari Helén Varøy.
The students have to handle both the bidding rounds and the housing speculators when they rent house through the expensive, private housing market. Statistics Norway’s Rental Market Surveys for 2009 show that the average monthly rent in Oslo and Bærum is 7459 Norwegian kroner. In comparison, the monthly rent in the other large student towns in Norway, such as Trondheim, Bergen, Tromsø and Stavanger, is on 6043 kroner. The average rent in Oslo has increased 7,5 percent since 2008.

Four jobs in addition

Leader in The National Union of Students in Norway (NSU) Anne Karin Nymoen keeps an eye on Statistics Norway´s Rental Market Surveys every quarter, and she is worried about the increase in prices on the housing market in Oslo.
– The surveys confirm what we claim all the time; the study support from the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund does not follow the price increase in the rest of society. The Loan Fund gives students more money every year, but the problem is that the amount of money fails to mirror the increase in prices in the rest of society, says Nymoen.

Media Studies student Ruben Karijord Stokke feels forced to have several part-time jobs in order to pay his rent.
– It works out, what with the loan and scholarship, plus the part-time jobs, says Stokke.
He lives in a 75 square meter apartment on Vestgrensa, rented on the private market. He lives there with two friends, and each of them pays 5000 kroner a month, including electricity.
– The location, and also the fact that I live with my friends, is important to me. I would rather work part-time so I can keep living like a do now, says Stokke.

3700 students in line

The alternative would be to apply for a student apartment through the Foundation for Student Life in Oslo (SiO).
The Foundation is capable of housing well over 7400 students in their 6000 student apartments. Of the 42 000 students who pay the semester fee, 3700 of them were in line to get housing last fall.
– The government has granted a remarkable amount to the building of new student apartments, but NSU will demand a thousand of them before 2011, says Nymoen.
– This is long-term work. The need for housing has not yet been covered, she concludes.

Lack of rental flats

– There is a lot of money to earn on being a speculator on the housing market. It has almost become a status symbol, says manager of the Norwegian Union of Tenants, Lars Aasen.
– I would like to see that there was a price regulation, he adds.
Aasen has some views on why it is so much more expensive to rent a place in Oslo than in the other large cities in Norway. The most obvious reason is the continual increase of the number of students who choose to study at the largest institution of education in the country. This results in that the number of rental flats is lower than the number of applicants.
– Apart from the student apartments there are almost no building of rental flats in Oslo, says Aasen.
– The financial crisis and the unsteady housing market might also have scared people. People who otherwise would have chosen to invest in housing might now set out for the rental market, he says.