Record number of Swedish home listings

A record number of homes are up for sale in Sweden, with one of the country's largest real estate websites featuring more listings than during the turbulent days of autumn 2008.

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According to recent figures, Hemnet.se featured 16,221 apartments for sale the week ending July 4th, the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper reports.

The figure represents a 31 percent increase from the same period last year.

The home sales website is operated by several of the country’s largest brokers in cooperation with the Dagens Nyheter and Göteborgs-Posten newspapers.

In addition, 17,997 detached houses were also listed, an increase of 24 percent compared from the same time in 2008.

The last time Hemnet.se broke a record for the number of real estate listings was in the autumn of 2008, amid falling prices, higher interest rates, and uncertainty on the part of banks and buyers.

Since then, interest rates have fallen steadily, making it easier for people to sell their homes, causing a rise in prices and a drop in inventories during the first three months of 2009.

“We’ve sold more homes than ever in the early spring. The trend was seen all across the country,” said Johan Vesterberg, a spokesperson for estate agency Fastighetsbyrån, to DN.

Starting in April, however, the number of homes on the market began to rise again, which may put the brakes on the recent rise in residential real estate prices.

“As a specific factor, that ought to have a negative effect on prices. It should also mean that price differences will get larger between attractive and less attractive objects,” Densia estate agency appraiser Petter Jonsson told the newspaper.