Impacts of liberalization of the cooperative housing sector in Norway

Abstract

Norwegian housing policy has been orientated to ownership. Housing cooperatives were organized in order to deal with social housing in the urban areas, where other nations made arrangements for a public rental sector. During the first part of the 80s, the former regulations on sales in the cooperative sector were for the main part withdrawn. The aim of this article is to describe the effects on sales prices, housing costs and recruitment of this new policy. The particular Norwegian expression in the question of ownership, was more of a liberalization process than of any privatisation. The majority of the households in the cooperative sector were given an extension of their rights, and they were thereby given the opportunity of selling to market‐oriented prices. Generally, the prices rose in a period where liberalization took place. Liberalization in the former regulated cooperative market meant an increase in rights for the sellers and far higher prices for the buyers. The rise in prices affected recruitment to a surprisingly low extent, mostly due to a corresponding deregulation of the credit market.