Apartment prices have fallen by more than 25 percent in some parts of Helsinki since the peak of Finland’s housing market, while prices in other neighbourhoods have held up or even increased.
The widening gap emerges from an analysis by Helsingin Sanomat’s HS Visio, based on Statistics Finland data on prices per square metre between 2021 and 2025.
The period begins with the last full year before interest rates started to rise and Finland’s housing market entered a prolonged downturn.
Nordea economist Juho Kostiainen, who has also analysed regional housing prices, said the trend has reinforced differences that were already visible before the slump.
“Cheap areas have become even cheaper,” Kostiainen told HS.
For many Finnish households, housing is their largest asset, meaning the growing geographical divide also has implications for household wealth.
Small apartments hit hardest
The strongest price declines in Helsinki were recorded in eastern parts of the city.
Puotinharju and Itäkeskus–Marjaniemi were the only postal code areas where the overall decline exceeded 25 percent.
Within Itäkeskus–Marjaniemi, however, the picture varied sharply by housing type. Prices per square metre for studio apartments fell by 45 percent, while three-room flats in apartment buildings declined by 32 percent.
Terraced homes in the same postal code area lost only around one percent of their value.
The contrast illustrates one of the clearest trends in the data: small apartments have performed much worse than larger homes and terraced housing.
Studios recorded the steepest declines, followed by one-bedroom apartments.
Neighbourhoods with large numbers of small flats, including Sörnäinen–Harju and Alppila–Vallila, were among those hit particularly hard.
One explanation is the disappearance of investor demand.
During the era of near-zero interest rates, Finnish property investors bought large numbers of studios and small apartments. Higher borrowing costs sharply reduced the attractiveness of those investments.
Housing preferences have also changed as remote work has become more common. Couples increasingly seek larger apartments, while families may want additional rooms for working from home.
Espoo has held up better
The downturn has been milder in Espoo than in Helsinki or Vantaa.
HS Visio found no Espoo postal code area where prices had fallen by more than 17 percent.
Areas dominated by terraced housing generally performed better than those with large numbers of small apartments in multi-storey buildings.
The same pattern was visible in Helsinki. Prices rose the most in Veräjämäki and Tammisalo, both areas with a relatively large share of low-rise and detached housing.
At the opposite end of the market, some traditionally expensive central areas also recorded substantial losses in euro terms.
In Kaartinkaupunki, for example, the price per square metre of one-bedroom apartments fell from around €9,500 to €7,500.
Older housing stock under pressure
In Vantaa, the steepest declines were seen in areas with large amounts of housing built between the 1960s and mid-1980s.
Koivukylä–Havukoski recorded the strongest fall in square-metre prices. Havukoski consists largely of apartment buildings constructed in the 1970s.
Similar housing stock is common in other areas that have seen sharp declines, including Mikkola, Korso and Länsimäki.
Kostiainen said one possible explanation is that buyers are especially cautious about homes likely to require major renovations when the overall market is weak.
His analysis also found correlations between price declines and factors such as income, education and unemployment.
“In general, prices have fallen more in areas with a weaker socioeconomic position,” he said.
By contrast, neighbourhoods with a high share of owner-occupiers have tended to be more resilient.
The figures nevertheless need to be treated with some caution. In several postal code areas, transaction volumes were too low for Statistics Finland to publish data for every apartment type.
Even so, the broader pattern is clear: Finland’s housing downturn has not affected all homes equally.
Small investment apartments and cheaper districts have suffered the most, while larger homes, terraced housing and many traditionally stronger residential areas have retained their value considerably better.