Hey – Today, I’ll tell you whether now – in 2025 – is a good time or not to buy a house or apartment in Denmark. If you’re thinking about buying a property here, this video will help you make a better informed decision.
And Straight-on, my take is:
- Yes – It’s probably a good time to buy. I think that so long as the economy keeps strong, prices won’t go down. If you’re buying for the medium to long-term, go for it.
- …and, for context, I say this with skin in the game. I bought townhouse in Copenhagen in February of 2025. (So, that’s the second property I buy here already).
That said, the future is always full of uncertainties. There’s a trade war heating up, geopolitical uncertainty and looks like there’s chaos everywhere. It’s never clear cut.
- But I’ve a lot of confidence in the market now that we’d interest rates climbing and higher taxes kicking in and prices still went up.
In the rest of the video I’ll explain this take in more detail.
If you’re new here, my name is Mario – and I’m passionate about financial independence. In this channel I help people living in Denmark to buy a house, invest well and live a rich life.
So…
- In 2022-23, we’d interest rising to up to 5%. Now they’re down to 4%, but that’s 4x higher than they were on the eve of and during the pandemic. That cooled down the market, but it picked up again.
- In 2024, we’d new property taxes kicking in. They made living in apartments more expensive – to the tune of a few thousand kroner per month at least. Every expert predicted the market to take a big hit after that. Things cooled down in Jan and Feb, but prices are higher now than in December 2023.
- In 2025, the first few months have been some of the hottest in a long time, with less properties in the big cities up for sale and then selling quickly and record sqm prices.
You can see this story play out in the data:
- I look in Copenhagen, but .. sqm prices, properties on sale.
Keep in mind, it costs considerably more to buy something now in running costs vs. a few years back. 4% is substantially more than 1%, and if you add the extra taxes is ouch ouch. So what keeps the market going then?
It’s the fundamentals.
Housing Fundamentals
- (1) Strong Economy
- Denmark has weathered covid relatively well, the government and household finances remain relatively solid and there’s a booming job market with wage growth. This is all important as there’s high correlation between economic strength and asset prices such as real estate.
- In cities like Copenhagen we’re also receiving thousands of highly paid expats and that also makes up for a boost in demand at the mid and high end of the market.
- There’s the “cloud” of trade war, yes, so let’s see about that. I work in Maersk and this year is not looking very good for us. Novo’s stock is half of what it was a year ago. Let’s see what happens…
- (2) It Is Still “Cheap”
- In comparison with other cities in Europe. (Show Numbeo data b-roll that is this video’s folder in GD.). Other Scandinavian cities such as Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki are more expensive. France and Switzerland, and other places like Amsterdam even more.
- For example — sqm price in Copenhagen is around 58.000kr. vs. 59.000 kr in Helsinki and over 76.000 kr. in Stockholm.
- That said, the gap is closer now than it was a few years back.
- You could argue that the Denmark numbers are artificially low — that because we count corridors, etc. as part of the apartment our numbers should be higher. And I would say, yes – you’re right, but if we take 10% more increase we’re still not in the Europe Top 10.
- (3) Demand / Supply Imbalance
- It’s crazy expensive to rent in Denmark. At least when you can’t get a good rent-controlled deal, more in the video here.
- You often (very often) have a better deal by owning a place vs. renting from a cashflow perspective. That, depending on how high your rent is now, and if you get access to to the cheapest loans and interest-only setups.
The Elephant in the Room
And then there are taxes. In Denmark, investments are very highly taxed (42%!) – even on unrealized gains. It makes the country a terrible place to build wealth.
- It’s not an exaggeration that it makes Denmark the worst place in the world when it comes to investing in stocks.
There’s just ONE good deal in Denmark, and that’s that the sale of your primary home is not taxed on capital gains. So, if you buy a place for 5m, and sell for 8m, that’s 3m straight to your pocket.
Hence … If you want to build wealth in Denmark, financial independence and all that, the best is to buy the most expensive house you can afford and pray prices will go up.
Two notes on this:
- This FOR SURE drives up some of the prices. The higher the gain (tax free), the higher downpayment you can put down, and the higher you can bid… It’s like a virtuous cycle (or vicious, depends on your point of view).
- Also – It’s not that Denmark does this because of ‘charity’ or anything. They tax you heavily as a home owner – there are two taxes on home ownership, and both relatively high. But, in a context where the markets are up 10% in a year, 30% over a few years… That’s a big gain.
With that, you can say that there’s a strong base for prices to stay where they are. Nobody expects another big boom, but it would be strange for them to go down — at least to go down big.
My Recommendation
Should you buy?
Look – I can tell you what I AM doing. I think that’s better than preaching what YOU should do.
In February, I bought a townhouse in Islands Brygge, which is central in Copenhagen.
We paid a ridiculous amount for it. (Close to 12m). But alas, we’ve two kids and needed the space. I made a full video of the experience, linked here.
I also think it’s a good investment. (I was told I’m up between 700K-1m kr even before I moved in, which is ridiculous but let’s see).
Because of this, I’ve been looking closer to the market than the past years. Anecdotically:
- I’ve seen that some of the places I was interested on sold in a snap: many off market (so, were never advertised for sale) and others in just a couple weeks tops. I bought something off market myself.
- I’ve this apartment for sale, and the prices we’ve advertised, and offers we’ve received, are already 10%-15% over to what I had been quoted for last year. I haven’t sold yet, but alas, that’s the pulse of the market.
To wrap this section up – It sucks to buy at 4% and with higher taxes, but, alas, I just decided to accept that’s the way it is and move on. (And I guess many, many others have done the same thing).
When Not to Buy
In my case, I was looking for a medium to long-term home. It’s three years minimum, five years plus likely.
While I don’t know what will happen this or next year, I’m confident that over five years or more prices will be higher because of the fundamentals I just told you about.
If you’re looking for a short-term buy – say, one or two years, I would be wary. You can get lucky, but the risk of a one-off crash as we’d in the 2022 or even earlier this year is possible. You don’t want to be stuck on that.
That’s it from me today. What are you planning to do on housing? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching!