Apartments | A multimillion-dollar house was put up for sale in the far end of Finland, which received a crushing assessment from experts

HS told earlier this week in Kilpisjärvi for a detached house for sale at a price of 1.8 million euros. The house’s exceptional Asking Price and also its construction solutions arouse amazement among experts in the field.

MTV’s Grand Design Finland – program was completed in 2023. It took more than two years to build the house. Now, just over half a year later, they own the house Amelia and Brett Irwin are selling their home.

HS asked the opinion of three experts about the factors affecting the catch price of a tradable object. The experts familiarized themselves with the house’s sale announcement on the Etusivu.com website.

Construction solutions

“I would be extremely careful to design such a rickety, gabled building without making an underground cellar just to be sure,” says the architect and a member of the Finnish Federation of Architects Safa’s federal council Tarja Nurmi.

Grand Design Finland – program shows that Elementtitalo is manufactured in Estonia. The Irwins themselves have been planning and partly also building the house.

The property is a semi-detached house with large windows and a hipped roof. It has been divided into two apartments to suit the needs of the Irwins. The total living area is 270 square meters.

There is no separate hallway or wind closet, but the front door opens directly into the combined living room-kitchen in both apartments.

According to Nurmi, direct access to open spaces from the outside is not a suitable solution for Lapland’s conditions.

“Every opening, if it’s bitterly cold and windy, it snows right in.”

According to Nurmi, the house lacks a space that can be guaranteed warm in freezing weather. On the other hand, the extreme conditions of summer can also cause challenges.

“Frightening heat can also come to the north there. How do you act in a house like that, which has no cooling basement,” Nurmi ponders.

Interiors

“The traces of work in real luxury bathrooms are something completely different than in those pictures,” Nurmi points out.

The details of the bathroom seem unfinished based on the photos in the sales announcement. Nurmi notices, among other things, the absence of corner tiles.

The Irwins chose an epoxy floor for the house, which is an impact-resistant, seamless and tight surface. Epoxy floors are used, for example, in industrial halls and car repair shops.

Nurmi considers the epoxy floor to be an “interesting” solution in this type of house.

The pictures in the sales announcement show that two bedrooms have a bathtub. This also causes confusion in Nurmi.

“Those bathtubs in the corners of the bedrooms are strange.”

Location and price

“The seller has read that foreigners are ready to pay for the northern lights,” says the real estate agent at Roof LKV’s Espoo office Jaana Huurinainen. He considers the asking price of 1.8 million incomprehensible.

“There is absolutely no justification for this price.”

Kilpisjärvi is located right in Käsivarren Lapland, near the border of Norway and Sweden. Kilpisjärvi is part of the municipality of Enontekiö, with a population of more than 1,800 in 2022. Enontekiö covers the entire area of ​​Käsivarren Lapland. A large part of Käsivarren Lapland is wilderness.

Sales director of Roof LKV’s Espoo office Lauri Kuusela again says that for the same price you can get a value house in Helsinki. You could get 700–800 thousand euros for a wooden house in Kilpisjärvi.

According to Kuusela, even if the house in question had been built in Espoo, the price would be around 700,000 euros.

Tarja Nurmi would be very careful before deciding to buy the object in question for the price of 1.8 million euros.

“Bulk construction is a different matter, but that is sold at a luxury price.”

The real estate agent selling the house told HS earlier that building in Lapland is expensive because of the long distances. Building materials are brought from 400–500 kilometers away.