Skien, Festivity | Karpe dumps the price of the magnificent building:

Just before the New Year, the rap duo Karpe announced that their time in Festiviteten is coming to an end. But when no bids were received, the sales advertisement was taken off the market. Responsible broker Morten Kvelland at Privatmegleren told TA at the time that assessments were made for the way forward.

On Tuesday this week, however, the sales ad appeared again. This time the asking price was reduced from NOK 25 million to NOK 19.8 million.

It was Varden who reported this first.

Estate agent Morten Kvelland tells TA that there is no drama behind the price reduction.

– When it was first laid out, we priced the building at what we thought was right. Then you have to take action if you don’t get an offer, says Kvelland.

New measures to get sales: – Assessments are made

Have documented the income

It was in the spring of 2018 that the two artists in Karpe, Magdi Abdelmaguid and Chirag Patel, bought Festiviteten through their company Vi er best AS. At the time, they paid NOK 11 million for the building. Since then, a large and expensive job has been done to fireproof the Festivity.

The festival dates from 1891 and is a whopping 2,760 square metres, and the building has been a large part of the artists’ universe in recent years. In addition, Vi Er Best AS owns and operates commercial buildings, mainly the cultural center.

Kvelland tells TA that they have used time to document the income while Festiviteten has been off the market.

– Price and income are linked. The building has been used a lot by the current owners, and now the owner and operator have booked a lot of events for the time to come. It shows a future income potential for that part of the building, says Kvelland and adds:

– There are also large parts of the building that can be developed further.

ALSO READ: No one has submitted a bid for the building: – In such a sale, there is always a discussion about price

– No surprise

So far, there have been several people who have expressed their interest in the building, but this has not led to any bids.

– We have many people who have sniffed it. The interest is there, both from outside the city and within the city. We understand, and have made the stakeholders aware that it is a process, both with investigating further potential and other things. It has not been a surprise to us that such a building takes time, says Kvelland.

With the new asking price of NOK 19.8 million, Kvelland believes that “the buyer gets an extremely large amount of property for the money”. At the same time as they have ice in their stomachs, the estate agent hopes that the right buyer will be triggered by the reduced price.

– We are not that stressed, but we would like to resolve it. We hope that something will happen in the future. Now we are also noticing improvements in the market locally, concludes Kvelland.