Eight-year wait for a home in Stockholm
Published: 14 Jan 13 07:55 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/45596/20130114/
Would-be Stockholm residents now have longer to wait for an available apartment than ever before, with new statistics showing an average waiting time on the region's housing queue of eight years.
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The average wait for a house in the region also shot up to 8.5 years - or 15 years for those who prefer to live centrally. The central island Kungsholmen has an average waiting time of 17 years.
These statistics come fresh from Stockholm's municipal housing queue, run by Stockholms Stads Bostadsförmedling AB.
Maria Nordlöf of Bostadsförmedling explained that the city's housing scheme is a whole different game from 10 to 20 years ago when it was possible to find a home in the centre of Stockholm.
"If you're looking for a rental apartment, you should consider the entire Stockholm region," she told the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper (SvD).
Further outside the centre of the Stockholm region, in areas such as Huddinge, Upplands Väsby, Järfälla or Botkyrka, the average waiting time dropped to six years.
But living outside of the city is no solution, according to Lina Glans, CEO of the Jagvillhabostad.nu ("I need a house now") website and lobbyist for increased housing in the nation's capital.
"The situation is extremely frustrating and affects a whole generation," she told the paper.
She stated that many people can't begin a real life as an adult until they have a stable housing situation in the same area as their work.
"That young people can't live where all the work is will affect Sweden's future development and growth."
Despite the extensive waiting times and long list of housing hopefuls, only 1,700 new homes were built in Stockholm last year.
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Why?
Why? Well, the "moderate" government of the past 6 years wanted to privatize everything. SO they sold an entire service of state owned rentals... to whom? Well, some people living in them were able to get loans to buy their apartments, but most are now owned by large corporate land owning companies.
The result is that with the remaining ownership passing to the large companies as of this year, literally half of the rentals are now gone. Many places we have been looking at are now only for sale, no rental available. My wife has been on "the list" for 6 years now, and we've approached being number 2 or 3 a couple of times in our area, but now we're stuck again. And with her being a student (she starts school again this month, now that our daughter is 18 months old) we don't qualify for being able to rent from the private companies that now own most of the apartments.
So we continue to live with her parents in their apartment. All of us.
The other killer is subletting, the long waiting times are for primary rental contractsbut illegal rentals from primary tenants who have moved out, but won't give up their flats, can are readily available. Elliminate or reduce secondary rentals and waiting times will fall - it is not just about expensively building new flats.
'Why don't they build enough new housing?' - I would like to know the answer as well as it is very unusual and against the market laws that they don't build while there is a huge demand for housing. I'm quite sure that every apartment in newly built housing would be sold far before the end of construction (as it happens to all nyproduktion housing nowadays).
Of course in a growing capital there will be more and more people wanting to live in the center and not everybody can.....which is the same anywhere in the world.
Also if you can buy a 60m2 apartment in Östermalm for say 3.5 MSEk it is also not faire to be able to rent a similar apartment for 6000SEK/month.
The big issue is that having waiting times of say 10 years is not a sensible thing......if you are going to work in Stockholm you need something now.....not in 10years. Now it is just parents putting their infants on the list so that when they are 18 they have an apartment.....even if they would work in Göteborg. So the idea of being very fair and social (so that not only the rich can live in town) is just not working....it favours people that put their names on the list early and doesn't care about if they really need the apartment or not.
And the moderates plan that jsegel desrcibed was indeed just to make some people that were lucky enough to rent an apartment happy by giving them the chance to buy their apartment for half the market value....talk about fairness.
In London rents are reaching 40-50% of incomes and buying property on a normal income is essentially impossible. Most of the decent social housing in London was sold off long ago and the current plans are basically to deport the unemployed.
But London is a dream if your are seriously rich, although the local rich are beginning to complain that the international rich and driving prices too high.
Stockholm could be saved.
I have in laws who had a rent control in Malmo and wanted a rent control in Stockholm. So they had to find someone with a rent control in Stockholm who wanted one in Malmo. The whole devious process took forever, there was cash on the side and all kinds of nonsense just so they both could keep these artificially low rents. They have plenty of money they're just cheap pricks. And they don't even live in Stockholm, they just keep that place for weekends. The system might have started with good intentions, but it just leads to manipulation because its entire premise is to deny the reality of the market.