Housing expenses are consumers largest cost. By their own choices, consumer can affect the magnitude of their housing expenses, and therefore accumulation of their wealth.

The goal of the thesis is to find the most inexpensive type of accommodation for a consumer living in or moving into Oulu or any of its neighboring municipalities. The figures are mostly based on the published information of the Bureau of Statistics. To find the most inexpensive type of accommodation, the previous figures are collected up and converted into more comparable form. After that the difference of the wealth acquired by the different types of accommodation are taken to attention.

Comparing the integrated figures, it turned out that new optional types of accommodations are both most inexpensive and give the best opportunities for accumulation of wealth. The most expensive and worst type of accommodation, in terms of accumulation of wealth, turned out to be an owner-occupied apartment.

Consumers can compare different types of accommodations by using the information produced by the investigation in question. They can choose the best option available based on accumulation of wealth.