Vista Analysis has mapped inquiries in the rental market

The rental market is a market that in many ways works well, but tenants still generally have poorer housing conditions than homeowners while there is a bias in which groups that rent housing. The Government has a stated goal that renting should be a safe alternative to owning.

On behalf of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Vista Analyse has mapped inquiries about rent conditions. The purpose is to acquire more knowledge about user insights from the rental market. The results of this work are now made available in a new report (in norwegian). The report maps and compiles the topics that tenants and landlords address to Forbrukerrådet, Leieboerforeningen, Huseierne og Husleietvistutvalget. When the four parties receive an inquiry, it is most often about questions related to the rental price, termination of contract, deficiencies in the dwelling and the landlord and the tenant's duties.

Based on the data from the four parties, we have carried out text analyses that nuance the picture that is formed from the parties' own categorization systems. In addition, we have harmonised the concepts in the categorization systems used by the players, so that a more complete picture of the composition of the content of inquiries in the rental market is formed. We have also conducted interviews with the four actors.

"We thank the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development for the assignment, and recommend that further investigations of the issues be carried out, with the aim of investigating how to reduce the systematically poorer living conditions among those who rent," says project manager Henning Wahlquist. He adds that the survey shows the composition of topics in the inquiries, but more knowledge about what are actually the main causes of problems one can do something about remains unclear.