– The trend continues – E24

According to Nordea, the number of premium waiver requests doubled this fall, compared to last spring, and the trend continues. At the same time, DNB and Danske Bank are now seeing an uptick in these applications.

High interest rates and rates are starting to affect people’s wallets and thus also their scam banks.

Norges Bank has raised interest rates six times in the past year, but the impact on individual mortgages always comes a few months later. So only these days people are experiencing mortgage interest rates around 4 percent.

And last year’s eve, the Norwegians broke the piggy bank for the first time since the financial crisis.

Nordea has now reported that it is seeing a sharp increase in the number of people applying to avoid paying loan installments.

– Compared to the level in the spring of 2022, the number of applications has doubled throughout the fall, and we note that this trend has continued in the first two months of this year, says Kathryn Graf, press director at Nordea.

Danske Bank and DNB have also started to see an uptick in interest-free installment applications.

– Inflows to client managers related to interest-free installments in January increased by 20 percent compared to the same month in the previous year, Danske Bank Communications Director Øystein Schmidt tells E24.

Also influence the repayment period

However, Danske Bank maintains that there are still a few people who generally contact them.

—but in other words, there’s more to it than I saw at the beginning of last year, says Schmidt.

Also, how long is the loan term, is something people are starting to adjust to now.

Although they don’t have exact numbers, Nordea reports that it has seen an increase in customers who have extended their loan term.

– Our consultants report that many clients are now using this as a move to have a slightly larger monthly budget, and to be able to more easily deal with higher electricity bills and otherwise increased household expenses, says Graf at Nordea.

DNB also sees adjustments to the term of loans, but to a lesser extent.

Group Director of Personal Markets at DNB Ingjerd Spiten believes the threshold for people to do something about a mortgage is too high.

– We Norwegians also use a mortgage as our most important savings, and many of us prioritize reducing other areas of consumption before going to the bank to refinance the loan or apply for interest-free payments, says Spiten.

The DNB manager says that it is very rare for Norwegians to be unable to service their loans, and that in cases where this happens, there are often serious problems behind it. For example, you have lost your job or there are other personal problems affecting your finances.

New home price numbers will be released on Friday.

After peaking in August, home prices have begun to decline. The price drop last fall was the largest in the used property market since the financial crisis.

However, the “January effect” has come into play and there was a slight rebound in the first month of the year. However, after correcting for seasonal changes, housing prices did not change in January.

For a long time, it was common practice for many to buy a new home before selling the old one.

Some need to be extended

E24 asked DNB, Nordea and Danske Bank if they now see that Norwegians are now largely going through intermediate funding pressures, being left for a while with two homes to finance.

None of the banks suffers from an increase in the demand for intermediary financing loans.

However, Nordea press director Kathryn Graf says the following:

– We see that there are some who need an extension, but there don’t seem to be any challenges around this.

According to Ingjerd Spiten, Executive Vice President of Personal Markets at DNB, the housing market is doing quite well.

Homes sell quickly, which is why there are a few long-term residents with, say, two homes, Speten says.