Housing market crisis in Finland

Housing prices have been going down and not many new houses are built. I wrote a blog post 2,5 years ago if it would make sense for me to buy a home instead of renting. The conclusion was that it didn't make sense financially and now after housing prices have gone down, the decision to not buy has been a good one. Today I checked that the same size apartment in the same address is available for 250k so the price has lowered 50k. Now monthly down payments for a 250k mortgage of 30 years with 2,8 interest rate would be 1 032 EUR. Adding the monthly maintaining costs it would mean paying every month 1 268 EUR. That is slightly above my rent so buying would make more sense now. People are wondering will the prices of homes keep on going lower, better. Or if you believe the prices will start going up, it's a good time to buy now.

Coaching volleyball

I have been coaching beginner level juniors aged 13 - 16 in volleyball two times a week for an year. It has been a pleasure to see players developing and some of the them have been already drafted to competing teams. I feel a bit sad when good players advance to competing team cause then they're not anymore part of my coaching squad. 

I have seen articles how all levels of players should be given a chance to train. Often I have noticed that players with low level don't seem to have motivation to practice or making their best effort in the practice. The level of the players' motivation also impacts my motivation to coach so I understand the difficulty of finding good coaches for players with low level of skills. If player doesn't seem to listen, follow your instructions, attends training session seldom etc. You start to wonder why couldn't they give the spot for someone else who is more enthuastic. For example in my volleyball club we're lacking coaches so we cannot offer a spot for all the interested players.

Looking forward for the next semester of training and I'm thinking about coaching a competing team. 

Interactive wall for games with ball

Multiball in Superpark Turku

Finally I had a chance to play Multiball what I had been looking forward to play almost an year. The set up in Turku was only for tennis with slanted floor. The space was also quite small so based on what I had seen the game could offer much more with more space and with additional sports equipment.

I enjoyed playing but some available games were very difficult as the game ended in under 30 seconds. Also the calibration was slightly off because the projector had moved and moved even more during the time I stayed in the location. My observation was that kids prefered more trampolines of the location than Multiball. The interactive wall was fun but it cannot beat playing tennis against opponent with similar skill level. 

You can live in an old prison in Finland

The main building

Yard

Last weekend I visited an old prison of Kakola in Turku. The old prison has been transformed to apartments and hotel rooms. You can find in the area a spa, escape room adventure, restaurant and other services. The funicular which is famous for not working takes you to the top of the hill where the old prison is located. Also in Helsinki you can find a prison that has been transformed to a hotel if you're interested in staying in a prison.

You cannot find such unique look and thick walls in modern buildings. 

Reading list 2025

Here 20 books listed which I have read since the last list. I have highlighted 5 books which stood out the most

Browning, Christopher - Aivan tavallisia rivimiehiä

Coyle, Daniel - The culture code: The secrets of highly successful groups

Gladwell, Malcolm - Daavid ja Goljat

Gladwell, Malcolm - Pommittajat: matka toisen maailman sodan pisimpään yöhön

Gladwell, Malcolm - Revenge of the tipping point

Gladwell, Malcolm - Sinisilmäiset: miksi luotamme toisiin silloinkin kuin ei pitäisi

Haidt, Jonathan - Ahdistunut sukupolvi: Kuinka älypuhelimiin perustuva lapsuus on aiheuttanut mielenterveyden häiriöiden epidemian

Harari, Yuval Noah - Nexus - tietoverkkojen lyhyt historia

Juntunen, Esa - Vaurastu viisaasti: rahataidot haltuun

Kantola, Anu – Huipputuloiset

Kuusela, Hanna – Syytös

Martela, Frank - Älä etsi onnea

Orava, Sakari - Elämäni urheilukirurgina

Oksanen, Sofi – Puhdistus

Peterson, Jordan - 12 uutta elämänohjetta

Saahko, Lotta-Sofía - Kahvia ja karjalanpiirakoita

Saahko, Lotta-Sofia - Papan kanssa kahvilla

Shua Dusapin, Elisa - Pachinko-kuulat

Tahkokallio, Keijo - Kuka kasvattaisi lapsesi? 

Torkki, Juhana - Järkevää onni: stoalainen tie mielen rauhaan

Football phenomenon Gilla

Gilla playing in Laaksolahti

FC Gilla is formed by popular Finnish social media influencers (Roni Back, Roope Rannisto, Jalmafi etc.). The team includes also popular music artists (JVG, Ege Zulu, Hugo etc.) and former top division football players (Ilari Mettälä, Duarte Tammilehto, Teemu Penninkangas etc.) from Finland. FC Gilla is the most followed Finnish football team in social media, beating also the top division (Veikkausliiga) teams of Finland. Gilla has 69k followers in Instagram and 42k followers in YouTube vs. HJK the biggest club in Finland 47k followers in Instagram and 15k followers in YouTube. The team has won promotion every season and the fourth promotion in row to the 5th level (kolmonen) will be likely achieved. 

The team has gained popularity fast and I decided also to go see their match live. The 6th highest level (Nelonen) football match in Laaksolahti Espoo attracted about 1 000 spectators. Gilla ultras a group of about ten young boys with chants and drums were also present. Matches of Gilla are still free entry so traditional football teams in Finland are still doing better with attracting paying spectators to the stands. 

Gilla has to find new players if they want to climb towards top divisions. The retired top division players and other players with large following have their limitations. The question is are the current players ready to start training football seriously and if they drop out will the club supporters still support Gilla if their favorite players are not playing in the team anymore. One option is to make a reserve team where influencers with large following could play in a suitable level for them but would that decrease the following of the more competitive main team too much. The owners must be thinking what to do.

Summer album

 Here 5 snapshots from my summer

Oittaa beach

Art in Kuopio

Artistic basketball field in Helsinki

Wooden Rollercoaster of Linnanmäki

Art in the center of Iisalmi

Arcade games in Helsinki

Dancing game

Driving simulator

I went to the shopping center Itis to try out the games in new arcade games center. The center piece was the rally simulator with suspensions. The driving experience was cool and suspensions definitely gave a more immersive experience. There was also a dancing game like Stepmania but an upgraded version with great light effects and the playing required moving your whole body. The third game worth mentioning was a shooting game where guns had recoil. There were also other games which were fun. 

Football pinball

Football merged to pinball in SuperPark Turku

When I was young I liked playing Psycho pinball with PC so it was a joy to discover an interactive game where football is merged to pinball. In football pinball you collect points by kicking the ball to the targets during one minute. You use actually your own feet to kick the ball and not your fingers to push the buttons like in arcade pinball. The game was fun and skills acquired from playing football were useful. It was fun to compete against my brother and see who is able to collect more points. Though I noticed that the targets were too sensitive and you often got points even though you didn't hit the target. The idea is very good and with some further development it would be even more fun. I have some ideas how the football pinball could be improved.

I have also tried a football version of billiard which was also fun but not as fun as football pinball. In the future I hope to be able to try a Finnish invention: activity mat called Dribla, which you play by dribbling a football.

Mentality in Spain and Finland

I listened a podcast clip of Jordi Wild where he interviews journalist David Jiménez. They discuss how Spanish people are very envious and do not admire or appreciate successful people. They say that in the Spanish culture it is better to stay mediocre than succeed. For me this sounded the same how Finnish mentality is often portrayed in Finland.

Then Jiménez continued how being entrepreneur has been made very difficult in Spain. Bureaucracy makes starting a company difficult and starting a company can take months. In general Spanish people don't appreciate entrepreneurship according to Jiménez. My understanding is that starting a company in Finland is fast and can be done in one week. Especially Slush has brought a lot of positive things for Finnish start up companies.

As an example for how bad public sector works in Spain, Jiménez gives an example how he had to wait inline when booking a train ticket of Renfe on their mobile app. The waiting time of 27 minutes with an mobile app is something unheard of. In March Yle published an article about the attractiveness of public sector as an employer. Many young people are aiming for public sector jobs in Spain because it is more stable, better paid and has better work life balance than private sector.