House Hunting, Norway Style

This is how you buy a house in Norway. You go to the bank and have a chat with a loan officer. Without signing anything, you are approved for 2.5 million nok- maybe more if you ask. Interest is around 3.35% and variable. Next, you look on the internet for houses. There is no buyer's agent. Rather, when you find the house you want to see, you go to the open house- which typically lasts for one hour on a Sunday through Wednesday. One hour. You can schedule a private showing. When you show up at a showing, there is a 50% chance the current owner will be there, which is simply weird. The realtor hands you a prospectus outlining the cost, and any association fees (if it is a townhouse). Not included in the price is sales tax of 2.5%. There isn't much property tax- maybe around $1000/year US- but not in all municipalities. If you are even remotely interested in a house, you sign a list with your name and number. If you are really interested, you place a bid. Once a bid is placed, everyone on the list is contacted for the opportunity to counter-offer.

That is the easy part. The hard part is finding a house in a nice neighborhood, with three bedrooms and some sort of garage, with a view, and on a bus line for at least one of us- at a price we can afford. We have already viewed maybe seven houses the past two days. We have decided to gut it out and wait for the perfect one. Oh, you can forget about yards. Some houses have a tiny patch or strip of grass, but they are rare. I am guessing I won't find anything with large trees- or a double garage. And what is particularly distressing is that no houses have air conditioning- meaning that I can expect this kind of weather all year.