Å leie et hjem? : en kvalitativ undersøkelse av leietakere i Trondheim sine erfaringer med å leie bolig

Abstract

This thesis explores the housing situation for renters in Norway's third largest city, Trondheim. My objective has been to examine the Norwegian renting sector from the renter's perspective, and my research questions have been: 1. How do renters in Trondheim perceive their situation as renters? 2. Which opportunities and problems do renters in Trondheim find that renting their home gives them? My data collection has been done through qualitative interviews with eight renters in Trondheim and with one representative from Leieboerforeningen, the Norwegian renters association. My findings are discussed with reference to the Norwegian housing sector and housing policy, and to different understandings of home as both a process and a set of values. My respondents express a duality in relation to freedom as a value attached to rented homes, as renting both gives them a sense of freedom, and a lack of freedom and control. On the one hand renting comes with fewer long-term financial obligations, lower financial risks and less day-to-day responsibility for their apartments. On the other, the freedom to shape and thus identify with their home is diminished. Their long-term financial situation will also in many cases be worsened. Related to this, I also find my informants experience a feeling of temporality that challenges the process of homemaking as both the incentives to and possibilities of redecorating, reconstructing etc.. This feeling of temporality, and the way this feeling challenges homemaking, is related to both the prevalent norm of owning one's own home, and the Norwegian housing policy and the situation in the renting market.