Heka rents to rise due to increased costs

Even after the raise, Heka’s average rent will be about 36% lower than the current average rent of housing on the free market in Helsinki. At their lowest, the Heka rent raises are 7–8%, and at their highest, 14.9%.

The highest rents at Heka are in the newest buildings, such as in Kalasatama and Jätkäsaari, where the rent is affected by the age and location of the buildings. Rents will rise significantly more than the raises specified above in buildings where renovations will be completed. This is because the quality of the renovated homes is almost as good as new. 

Due to the increased general cost level, the prices of parking spaces and sauna reservations will also rise in 2024.

Heka has taken measures to gain savings

Heka has extensive loans since new construction is financed entirely and renovations mostly with loans. Despite most Heka loans receiving loan interest subsidies from the government, the rapid increase in interest rates by several percentage units has caused interest costs to rise significantly. 

The increase in heating costs, renovation costs and the general cost level also increase Heka’s expenses significantly. In fact, our need to raise rents would have been even higher than the raises announced now, but we will be able to cover some costs with surplus accumulated over the years while also securing our company’s liquidity.

Heka has taken action to be able to avoid high rent raises similar to 2024 in the future. The Heka building renovation programme is being updated, and has been partially updated for 2024. The updates include moving the renovation of Puu-Vallila locations to 2028–2029. In addition to this, we have decreased the self-funding share of the renovations for the coming years. We will save in office rent and personnel costs by shutting down regional Heka offices and centralising the services to a single office. We will also reduce the meeting allowances and allocations to tenant democracy activities starting from 2024.

Moving forward, we will review all costs of our operations to achieve savings.

Rent payments cover the costs of operation

Heka operates at cost, which means that it must cover all costs of its operations with rent payments. Heka does not have other sources of income. As such, Heka must charge enough rent to cover the total costs of construction, renovation, maintenance and administration.

Heka does not seek profit or pay dividends to its owner, the City of Helsinki.

The Heka Board approved the rents for 2024 on 4 October 2023. Customers will be sent a letter about their rent for next year by the end of October.

See Heka’s location-specific average rent for 2024: