Valtteri Määttä faces challenges selling home in Vantaa as housing market declines

Valtteri Määttä, 31, and his family are in the midst of relocating, surrounded by moving boxes in their Vantaa home, which has just been sold. However, the sale process turned out to be more challenging than they anticipated. “We listed our apartment for sale in May 2023, and it took a year and a half before we finally closed the deal,” Määttä explains. They purchased their townhouse for €293,000 during the peak of the housing market in 2020, but ended up selling it for €12,000 less than they had paid. Määttä attributes this loss solely to the decrease in property value and also mentions additional investments they’ve made, such as installing an air-source heat pump and an electric vehicle charging point, which further increases their financial setback.

The family is preparing to begin a new home construction project in Helsinki, which has made the sale of their current home a priority. Määttä reflects on the unexpected difficulties of selling in the capital region, noting that they held multiple showings but only received five offers over 18 months, some of which were well below the asking price.

According to industry experts, the drop in housing prices began in summer 2022 with rising inflation and historically high Euribor interest rates, leading to market hesitance. While some analysts have reported signs of recovery in the housing market, particularly among older properties, new home sales have declined. In October 2023, sales of used homes rose by 22.7% compared to the previous year, while new homes saw a decrease of 17.5%. Määttä’s family now plans to move to a rental apartment nearby to allow their child to remain in the same daycare for another year. Construction of their new home is set to begin after the New Year.