Why are foreign buyers snapping up Norwegian cabins?
What share of cabin buyers come from abroad?
Tone Krange, cabin manager at DNB Eiendom, said that 4.4 percent of cabins, or hytter, sold in Norway in 2024 were sold to foreigners, with the share as high as 6.7 percent in and around the country's ski resorts.
In the first month of this year, she said, the percentage of foreign buyers in ski resorts has doubled compared to the first month of 2024.
The share of foreign buyers for Norwegian hytter has increased every year since 2020 when only 2 percent of buyers came from abroad. The composition of foreign buyers has also changed, with an increasing share now coming from outside Scandinavia.
"Danes and Swedes have long taken their skiing holidays to Norway, but now the proportion of ski tourists from mainland Europe is also increasing, especially the Germans and the Dutch," Krange said.
You can see the growing importance of foreign buyers in the graph below.
The share of foreign buyers in cabin sales has been steadily increasing since 2020. Graphic: DNB
What's behind the growing share of foreign buyers?
Cost
Krange said that the growing share of foreign buyers followed on from the number of foreigners coming to the Norwegian mountains to ski, primarily on the back of the weak krone, which has turned Norway from an expensive destination to an affordable one.
"It's because of the low krone. That's that's the thing that has really boosted it," she said. "For the Swedes and the Danes and the Germans, it has been very expensive to go to the Alps for the last couple of years, and sometimes a little bit out to reach. They get so much more for their money here."
"In the Austrian side [of the Alps], the Swiss side and the French side, it's really double what it is here for everything: hotel prices, food prices, the restaurant prices, it's crazy."
She said the growing number of foreign skiiers was great for Norwegians who own a hytte in the main resorts, as it meant that they can be rented out non-stop when their owners are away.
Snow reliability and better facilities
The second factor was the reliability of snow in Norway, which has been drawing more and more foreign skiiers as climate change affects snow cover at Alpine resorts.
"The snow conditions have been really bad in a lot of places in the Alps, but the snow conditions in Norway, except actually for right now, have been good. We had a lot of snow in Norway last year."
She said that the owners of Norwegian ski resorts have also been investing heavily in new facilities and lifts, meaning the top resorts can increasingly compete with what is on offer in the Alps.
Ease of transport
The third factor, she said, was improving transport links to Norwegian resorts, with the Scandinavian Mountains Airport in Sälen improving access to Norwegian resorts like Tyrsil, for people to taking charter flights from the UK, The Netherlands or Germany.
There are also resorts which you can travel to by rail from Oslo.
Investment potential
Krange said that some well-off foreign skiers who came to Norway initially on a holiday decided afterwards that the weak krone meant buying a cabin would be a good investment, with foreign buyers able to benefit both from a future recovery in the currency and from the growing popularity of Norway as an international ski destination.
"I think several of those who have been here as ski tourists and had a good time in Norway decide that buying a cabin might be a good investment both financially and in terms of experience," she said.
"There is also a good rental market at the major destinations, so the cabin can easily be rented out when they are not using it themselves."
Rebound in the market
Krage said that the interest from foreign buyers was hoping to bring the market for holiday cabins back from the doldrums of recent years.
"I think we are slowly but surely approaching a normal market, and an interest rate cut in March will probably help," she said.
Last year, the number of cabin sales increased by 6.6 percent compared to 2023, and the median price increased by 4.8 percent.
Although it took an average of 116 days to sell a cabin last year, Krange believes it is slowly becoming less of a buyer's market.
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