A tight rental market means more and more students are on waiting lists to get into student accommodation.

“This is probably due to an even tighter rental market, but it may also seem that some students have been out with the applications earlier, perhaps as a lesson learned from last year,” Svein Hov Skjelle, director of Stiftelsen Anker Studentbolig og Hotell, told higher education news publication Khrono.

Anker’s student accommodation is full, with limited slots opening up at the beginning of August and then at the beginning of September.

“We have many applicants on the waiting list, and we expect a large influx of ‘desperate’ students when … admissions is ready. Experience shows that there will also be some cancellations, which means that there will be some movement in the waiting lists. We are continuously considering whether we should offer a ‘crisis offer’ like last year, where we temporarily accommodated students until they found a more permanent offer,” Skjelle said.

Meanwhile, another student accommodation provider in Oslo, SiO (Students in Oslo), told Khrono that it had more than 7,000 people on its waiting list. This is an increase of 12 percent compared to the year before.

“There are complex reasons for the increase, but I think the number of rental properties in Oslo is a contributing factor. And then price has become important at a time when everything is becoming more expensive. We haven’t increased our prices as much, and that may help more people to apply to us,” Andreas Eskelund, managing director of SiO, told Khrono.

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The head of the Norwegian Student Organisation (NSO), Oline Sæther, has said that the government and local authorities had a responsibility to increase student housing to prevent a congested property market.

Sammen, a student accommodation provider in Bergen, has said it is also experiencing a record long-waiting list. Communications Manager at Sammen, Marita Monsen, said there were nearly 3,000 people on the waiting list.

“We see that interest in student accommodation is increasing, and that is pleasing. At the same time, we look with concern at the growing queue of students who have not found a place to live,” Monsen said.

The Students’ Association in Gjøvik, Ålesund and Trondheim (SiT) has said they are at capacity and don’t use a waiting list system.

In Trondheim, home to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Nord University, SiT expects that housing new students shouldn’t be an issue.

Further north, Norway’s Arctic Student’s Association has said that it has seen fewer housing applicants yet to find a place to live.

“The number of students in the queue does not mean students without accommodation. Many students already have other places to live but would rather have an offer from us, or have turned down what they have been offered and choose to stand in line for a specific home,” Jens Nordås-Johansen, director of the Arctic Student Association, said.