She is 21 years old and has just bought an apartment in Copenhagen for 6 million kroner. And she paid the entire amount in cash.
It may sound extreme, but the example is real – and in Copenhagen, it is not unusual. A surprisingly large portion of the city’s apartments are purchased by relatively young first-time buyers, often with substantial down payments.
No less than half of all apartments in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg sold in 2025 were bought by first-time buyers, who had an average age of 31.
And we’re talking sky‑high prices: by the end of 2025, DKK 4.5 million would only buy you a modest 65 square meters on average.
Nevertheless, there is no indication that these young first-time buyers are stretching themselves thin or buying with their last pennies. On the contrary. They made an average down payment of no less than DKK 1.8 million.
This is revealed in an analysis of 6,419 apartment transactions in Copenhagen and Frederiksberg Municipality in 2025, published by the commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield | RED on Thursday.
But where on earth are young first-time buyers getting that kind of money for a home?
That question drove the firm’s managing partner, Nicholas Thurø, as he worked on the analysis.
»It was such a crazy figure that we started double-checking all the numbers to see if it was a mistake. It wasn’t,« he says.
If a 31-year-old were to save up DKK 1.8 million, he or she would need to set aside the last DKK 300,000 each year since the age of 19, based on an annual salary of approximately DKK 800,000, to save DKK 150,000 after taxes annually, estimates Nicholas Thurø.
»It’s hardly realistic to think anyone could have earned that much at such a young age. That told us the money must be coming from somewhere else,« he says.
This assumption held true when he and his colleagues began to trace the money. In the case of the 21-year-old who bought an apartment for DKK 6 million kroner, it turned out that her parents had borrowed DKK 3.3 million against the equity in their house in Hellerup, north of Copenhagen, just weeks before the purchase. This gave a good idea of where a significant portion of the down payment came from.
Thurø and his colleagues cannot see where the remaining money comes from. But it could, for example, come from the sale of a cooperative apartment. Or from an inheritance or an advance on an inheritance.
The example is not exactly typical, as most first-time buyers do not pay the entire purchase price. But the example is also not unusual.
In 14 percent of transactions in 2025, the buyer did as the woman in the example and bought the apartment by paying the entire amount upfront, without taking out a mortgage.
And in just 1 percent of all transactions, the buyer borrowed more than 90 percent of the purchase price.
The positive aspect of this is that there is no prospect of problems if housing prices fall. Even though people have bought at very high prices, the market can drop by 10 percent without almost anyone encountering issues, according to Cushman & Wakefield | RED.
Forget the idea of Copenhagen being for everyone
But the analysis also reveals a harsh and dramatic truth about the Copenhagen housing market.
»Politicians can forget the idea of ‘Copenhagen for everyone.’ The owner-occupied market isn’t even open to high earners who’ve worked their way up anymore. Even they rarely can swing these massive down payments—you usually only can if your parents are very wealthy,« says Nicholas Thurø.
»I earn a decent salary myself, but I suddenly felt incredibly poor when we arrived at these figures«, he says.
He sees the major realization in the new figures as a clarification that the Copenhagen ownership market has become closed off not just to average Danes but also to those who pursue long educations and/or are willing to work hard to save up. They simply cannot keep up when others enter the market with millions of kroner from their parents.
»The most surprising thing for me is that we have so many wealthy people in Denmark who can come up with such large sums for a first-time purchase. And these are only figures for apartment purchases in 2025. In other words, there are many more than our figures show who can do this«, says Nicholas Thurø.
Curt Liliegreen, director of Boligøkonomisk Videnscenter (the Knowledge Centre for Housing Economics), has seen the analysis’s conclusions.
»It’s striking, but not exactly surprising given the price trends. We’re talking big sums, and there’s likely a lot of help from wealthy parents—or maybe gains from selling a co‑op apartment—behind them. It’s a sign the city has become off-limits for many,« he says.
One of the more extreme examples in the figures is a 27-year-old woman who bought an apartment for DKK 11.2 million in one of Copenhagen’s most sought-after neighborhoods, Nicholas Thurø explains.
She was not a first-time buyer and had DKK 2.5 million from the sale of her previous apartment. But she paid the remaining over DKK 8 million in cash, without Thurø and his colleagues being able to see where the money came from.
A search on her showed them that she has a job that likely pays around DKK 50,000 a month. A fine salary, but nowhere near enough to explain where she got millions of kroner for a home purchase. And she is not listed as the current or former owner of any companies, Thurø explains.
The money, therefore, very likely comes from very wealthy parents. And although the example is extreme, it is not unique. For everyone else, the only way to own a home in Copenhagen is to marry someone with rich parents, Nicholas Thurø points out:
»It is actually a bit frightening. This is not the Copenhagen we wanted«.
Solution could exacerbate the problem
The analysis also presents another truth to politicians who are focused on making Copenhagen less skewed. Namely, that some of the solutions they have long considered simply will not work as intended.
If interest deductions are reduced, it will only slightly affect the many buyers in Copenhagen who come with large sums of money themselves, as they therefore do not have large interest expenses.
It will, however, affect those who are now left out – those who do not come with millions from their parents and therefore have to borrow the vast majority of the money for a home purchase, Nicholas Thurø points out:
»In other words, it will only exacerbate the problem«.
This leaves politicians with the need to force housing prices down if they want to give more people access to Copenhagen. This can be done by building many more homes so that the number of homes in the capital catches up with and surpasses demand. Or by introducing taxation on the profit from home sales.
»But the common factor for these solutions is that someone has to lose a lot of money from a fortune they otherwise would have had«, says Nicholas Thurø.
Just this week, Lars Løkke Rasmussen (M) argued for taxation on the profit from home sales, but there is far from agreement on this in the Danish Parliament. Venstre has rejected higher housing taxes, and Konservative wants a freeze on housing taxes and instead to expand the supply of homes.
»We need transparency and rules that are understandable, not invent new rules designed to target specific homeowners. And we need to build many more apartments in Copenhagen«, says Helle Bonnesen (K), a member of the Danish Parliament’s housing committee.
Finally, there is the obvious possibility that people simply find other places to live than Copenhagen. But that is unlikely, Thurø assesses. All national and international development indicates that the current trend will only strengthen – even if state institutions are moved out of the city.
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