Rental rates for privately financed apartments increased across the country — with the exception of the Helsinki region, according to fresh figures from Statistics Finland.
While the region's decrease was not major — 0.3 percent year-on-year during the second quarter — it was "exceptional", according to the number-crunching agency's chief actuary Martti Korhonen.
What made the development special, is that rent prices in the capital area have not decreased since the agency started tracking such figures in 2015, according to Korhonen.
He told news agency STT that rents for privately financed properties have been increasing at a rate of up to 0.5 percent annually for a long time.
Meanwhile, rents in the rest of Finland rose by 0.9 percent during April-June, year-on-year.
Prices rose the most in Rovaniemi (2%), while they fell most in the capital region city of Vantaa (0.8%). Vantaa saw rents decrease across all types of properties. In other parts of the Helsinki Metropolitan area, rents for large apartments did not rise or decline.
According to Korhonen, one factor influencing the slight dip in rent costs was the government's reforms of laws on housing benefits.
For example, changes that go into effect in August has driven students towards more affordable alternatives as well as shared housing arrangements.
