As more people live alone in Finland, an increasing number of single-person households are taking out mortgages, according to banks.
While Uusimaa has seen the highest number of single-person homebuyers, retail banks Osuuspankki, Nordea and Säästöpankki said one-person households were also increasingly interested in taking out mortgages in urban growth centres beyond the capital region.
Osuuspankki said singletons accounted for half of the bank’s mortgages with around fifty percent being first-time home-buyers.
Those taking out home loans on their own are usually people between the ages of 20 and 30, according to Kaisu Christie of Osuuspankki’s consumer lending unit.
At Nordea, one in four issued mortgages go to people living alone, most of them between the ages of 30 and 39. Jussi Pajala of Nordea said the bank had seen a jump in under 30-year-olds applying for mortgages in the past two years.
Last year Nordea’s mortgages for one-person households averaged between 130,000 and 140,000 euros while Osuuspankki’s were in the 115,000 to 125,000-euro range.
Säästöpankki’s Markus Lauri said the bank did not consider single buyers to be a bigger risk than other customers, saying the bank vets their ability to repay loans in the same way as that of other buyers.
Banks, however, said one-person households are sometimes forced to compromise on their dream home, noting that loan amounts available to households with one adult and child may make it difficult to purchase property in Helsinki’s downtown area.
Christie said that beyond the capital, a trend of first-time homeowners buying row houses or single family homes was emerging. She said remote work during the pandemic had likely accelerated this development.