NRK sells “Side om Side” villa at a profit of millions – Dagsavisen

This fall, NRK is showing the tenth and final season of the popular sitcom Side om Side. At the same time, NRK is in the process of vacating the villa in Røa where the series is being recorded. Now that the latest filing has been made, NRK will sell the two-storey villa in Oslo’s best west, and public broadcaster can look forward to a handsome profit. Home and land values ​​have risen in line with the housing market, each season of the sitcom produced.

NRK bought the house in Fådveien in Røa, one of the most expensive and sought-after areas of Oslo, in December 2012 for 9.1 million kroner a license. It was almost NOK 200,000 more than the appraised value, but the purchase proved to be a good investment. Not least because “Side om Side” became the most watched comedy series on Norwegian television, such a popular family entertainment on Saturday evenings that the series spent ten years on screen.

When the detached house of just over 250 square meters was purchased to order from NRK Entertainment, it was a unique real estate deal for NRK. The state channel usually leases premises to be used in the production of TV series. Project manager Sigmund Walsh took the initiative to buy the house.

[ Se vår liste over de beste Netflix-seriene ]

Side Om Side success story.

– This was the first time this was done. I have a background in the private production environment, and I wondered why we wouldn’t buy anything, if we were going to invest in producing three, four, five seasons of the series. We’ll save money if we buy something, Walsh says, and we can be sure of things like whether we’ll use the same site for the series year after year.

He’s been the project director for eight seasons of “Side om Side,” and the creative producer for the past two years.

[ Se en bra serie på Apples TV-strømmer ]

– This house had the facilities we needed, so it was a pretty good math. Owning is much less expensive than renting from year to year. Considering that the series has been allowed to run for ten years, that would be prohibitively expensive. Here, NRK made a major coup. If you buy a house in Roa, Walsh says, you can’t lose it.

Most of the interior scenes for the series were recorded in this house. This is where married couple Froude and Lisbeth, played by Tore Sagen and Pernille Sorensen, live. Their home life is depicted on one floor of the building. On the second floor, the recordings are made in the home of Celje (Henriette Friis Marot) and Jonas (Vidar Magnussen), who are portrayed in the series as the next-door couple.

[ Frasier Crane gjør comeback ]

Filming has been going on in the spring and early summer in this quiet neighborhood for ten years, and Sigmund Walsh is keen to say that the “Side om Side” team owes its patient neighbors a huge thank you for enduring all these years. But now the house has done the job, Falch points out.

The real estate agents Dagsavisen contacted did not expect NRK to have major problems with the sale. The property is located in a very attractive area on the western edge. Here, detached houses with garden plots can cost between NOK 15 and 20 million, and it is no coincidence that at least seven real estate companies have their own local offices in Røa. There are a lot of people who want to live here, says one broker, who roughly estimates that the price of NRK’s ​​Røa villa could be around 18 million.

famous house

The fact that the house is run down and has not been modernized or refurbished since NRK bought it reduces its value, as does the fact that the plot slopes towards the road. Dajsavisen learns that people who buy property in Roa don’t like sloping lands. At the same time, it increases the value of a home that has become known on television — or has been exposed, as one broker puts it.

This large six-bedroom villa dating back to 1937 is located in a quiet cul-de-sac not far from the Røa track, on a plot of over 900 square metres. It hasn’t been updated or refurbished since NRK bought it. The facades of the house and garage are thirsty for paint, and the garden is overgrown. The house is dilapidated, says Sigmund Walsh.

[ Se en god serie på HBO Max ]

– There was a large empty space, and it was used to shoot some miniseries, among other things. Over time, the appearance of the house became so recognizable that it limited the purposes for which it could be used. It got tiring. “If we had made more seasons, we would have had to change the roof and the windows and things like that,” Walsh says.

Veteran Side Om Side expects the real estate agent to consider the villa as a rehabilitation project. But there is no doubt that it will be sold at a profit.

– And this profit goes directly to the production of new content, and to the production of more TV shows, says Sigmund Walsh.

NRK Eiendom: – Buying a villa is a rare exception

The detached house in Røa is one of two private properties bought by NRK. The second is the so-called LL35 gaming house in Ljan in Oslo, which NRK bought for NOK 16 million in 2021 to produce game shows that stream online 24/7.

These are the exceptions, says department head Harald Hogerode at NRK Eiendom.

We don’t want to buy this kind of real estate. It is important for us to clarify that NRK does not engage in real estate speculation. “Basically we want to rent, not own, but there are a few times we’ve chosen to do it differently for good reason,” Hogrod says. He is now in the process of selling Villa Røa.

[ Benjamin Hermansen-serie kommer på NRK ]

“If we look at it from a purely commercial perspective, this business has been much more enjoyable than if we had been renting it for ten years, with the value development that has occurred,” Hogrod says.

– We only bought when we had a long horizon of what we were going to make, and when what we were going to make was so special that it would be difficult to rent something. So it makes sense to buy, says Hogrod.

– The alternative was to rent something for a number of years, at several hundred thousand crowns. As for “Side om Side,” no one had any idea that this would last for ten years. From an economic point of view, this was a reasonable assessment we made at that time, says the head of the department at NRK Eiendom.

Hogrod says NRK now plans to appraise the house and land and put them up for sale. The Old West Villa is considered a rehabilitation project and may also be subject to demolition.

[ Ny «Babylon Berlin»-sesong på NRK ]

NRK villa is for sale next year

– We don’t think it will be released before the winter of 2024. We haven’t got an appraisal yet, but the land is primarily of value, not the building. If I were to speculate, I think the buyer sees the value of the land, not the value of the house. It doesn’t necessarily have to be demolished, but a few million will soon have to be spent on rehabilitation. You have the opportunity to do other things on the plot and there is space for a semi-detached house there if you wish. We estimate the value to be around NOK 15 million in a somewhat declining housing market. But we bought for nine, so that was a good business for the taxpayers, Hogrod says.

Even if it came close to NOK 15 instead of 20 million, Side om Side veteran Sigmund Walsh thinks the Best West home purchase was worth millions. Whether the comic success he helped create has garnered enough praise and gold awards over the years is another matter entirely.

[ Årets beste serier – til nå ]

Great family success

– We have never received any Gullruten Awards, nor have we received any Comedy Awards. I don’t know if the series was too popular, or if it was classified as too broad, too cute, and too toothless. There might be something there. But the numbers say we got the job done and gave the audience what it wanted, Walsh says.

He doesn’t think NRK’s ​​new humor project will have the same impact as ‘Side om Side’. The time for the family comedy-drama genre may be over.

[ Se en god serie på Disney+ ]

So what explains the series’ huge popularity?

– We must have done a useful job in terms of script, had a really good cast and kept mostly the same people throughout. We were told: “Make a series your mom loves.” All measurements showed that she decides the remote control and what we will watch when we eat together on Saturday. “We were lucky that we hadn’t started working after three or four years,” Walsh says.

– Ten years ago, there was still a certain line group on Saturday evenings, and the series had a huge audience at the time and on the roof was what was needed. We’re off to a really good start with that. Having a million viewers today is the worst that the world has become, says Sigmund Walsh at NRK Entertainment.

[ Se en bra serie på NRK TV ]