Neuvottelija.com

Episode 202 · 2023-07-11 · 39:02 · Original in Finnish

The government is making the housing crisis worse | Petri Roininen | Negotiator 202

Originally published as “Hallitus pahentaa asuntokriisiä | Petri Roininen | Neuvottelija 202”

Petri Roininen, chief executive of Investors House and the channel's very first guest, joins Sami Miettinen in July 2023. The claim is narrow: the government is dismantling housing subsidies without cutting housing taxes, and on top of the rate shock that reinforces a downward path. Around it sit the trap in amortisation-free periods on housing company loans, the municipalities' vertical cartel in zoning, the 300,000 Finnish housing investors being tested by the rate rise, and a creeping crisis rather than a collapse. The guest runs a listed property company.

Guest: Petri Roininen · Host: Sami Miettinen

Core theses

  1. The asymmetry is the argument: subsidies are being cut while housing taxes are not, so the two do not offset.
  2. Amortisation-free periods on housing company loans postpone a problem into a period of lower collateral values.
  3. Zoning gives municipalities a vertical position that decides almost everything about a building, which is a competition question rarely framed as one.
  4. The guest runs a listed property company and has a direct interest in housing policy and rates.

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Key moments

  1. 00:00 — Petri Roininen returns as the channel's first ever guest
  2. 01:10 — The government programme dismantles housing subsidies but not housing taxes
  3. 02:57 — The total tax rate and public debt over the term
  4. 04:07 — Selling the state's listed holdings, and rail investment
  5. 05:51 — The culture war distracts from fixing the economy
  6. 07:05 — Euribor rose: a monthly payment from a thousand euros to 1,800
  7. 08:16 — Purchasing power collapsed and the housing market stopped
  8. 09:12 — A different crisis from the financial crisis
  9. 10:06 — Does housing benefit end up in rents
  10. 11:08 — Pressure for a 20 per cent rent rise
  11. 14:03 — Housing company loans and the trap in amortisation-free periods
  12. 16:38 — A banker's view of falling collateral values
  13. 18:42 — Lending restrictions arrived at the worst moment
  14. 19:18 — Support for right-of-occupancy housing ends
  15. 20:41 — The four cornerstones of housing policy
  16. 21:40 — The municipalities' vertical cartel in construction
  17. 22:58 — Property funds and the listed property sector
  18. 24:43 — Finland's 300,000 housing investors under test
  19. 26:25 — Commercial property and offices after remote work
  20. 29:07 — The zoning authority decides everything about a building
  21. 31:35 — A creeping crisis, not a collapse
  22. 32:46 — Construction bankruptcies and unemployment in the autumn
  23. 33:50 — ECB rate cuts as the only fast rescue
  24. 34:32 — Public finances must be managed regardless of the cycle
  25. 36:23 — Why Roininen joined the Centre Party
  26. 38:34 — Closing words

Summary

Petri Roininen, chief executive of Investors House and the channel’s very first guest, joins Sami Miettinen in July 2023. The claim is narrow: the government is dismantling housing subsidies without cutting housing taxes, and on top of the rate shock that reinforces a downward path. Around it sit the trap in amortisation-free periods on housing company loans, the municipalities’ vertical cartel in zoning, the 300,000 Finnish housing investors being tested by the rate rise, and a creeping crisis rather than a collapse. The guest runs a listed property company.

The asymmetry

The claim is narrower than the title: not that housing policy is wrong in general, but that subsidies are being cut while the taxes on housing are not, so the two do not offset — and that this lands on top of a rate shock that has already moved a typical monthly payment from a thousand euros to 1,800.

The two structural observations

Amortisation-free periods on housing company loans postpone the problem into a period of lower collateral values, which is when it is hardest to refinance. And zoning gives municipalities a position over almost every feature of a building — a competition question that is rarely framed as one.

Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Hallitus pahentaa asuntokriisiä | Petri Roininen | Neuvottelija 202. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.

In depth

The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.

Go deeper

People and topics

Guests: Petri Roininen

Topics: Finnish Economy & Policy Investing & Markets

AI and agent resources

Source and content status

Provenance: Finnish source: Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata, the neuvottelija.fi episode record and the publisher's own chapter marks, translated one for one; their spacing is irregular and matches the recording. No transcript is published here — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. The guest leads a listed property company and has a direct commercial interest in housing policy and interest rates, and no opposing voice is present; the long-form write-up in the Neuvottelija AI editions states that.. English subtitles: not available on this page; this is an episode summary, not a curated transcript. QA coverage 0% (metadata only). Original episode: neuvottelija.fi. Imported 2026-09-20 · last reviewed 2026-09-20. Passages the source audio left genuinely ambiguous are marked [unclear] rather than guessed.