OSLO: Norway’s underlying home prices unexpectedly falls the most in more than six years, in what some analysts attribute to lower activity among buyers and sellers because of the football World Cup.
Housing prices fell 1.1% month-on-month on a seasonally adjusted basis in July, the biggest drop since March 2020, according to data published by Real Estate Norway on Wednesday. Norges Bank had expected a gain of 0.4%.
The outcome follows a similar surprise in inflation data for June that the national statistics office said could have been affected by electronics sales campaigns related to the football World Cup.
It also comes after Norges Bank officials turned to monetary tightening in May as some of the first in western Europe.
“There is still some uncertainty surrounding the latest figures, given the possibility that the FIFA World Cup may have distorted the data,” Nora Vie Holm, an economist with Svenska Handelsbanken AB in Oslo, said in a note to clients.
She added Handelsbanken’s models suggest a seasonally adjusted decline of 0.5% in August.
Vie Holm added that “the outlook for housing prices will largely depend on future interest rate developments”. —Bloomberg
