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APARTMENT

Students compete to rent Sweden’s ‘smallest’ flat

As students in Lund get ready to compete for a chance to live in Sweden’s ‘coziest’ dwelling, the housing commission claim the bijoux cottages are simply ‘too small’.

Published: 24 January 2012 12:14 CET
Students compete to rent Sweden's 'smallest' flat

The detached apartment, or cottage, has been constructed by Lund’s building foundation, AF Bostäder (AFB), with student affordability as a priority.

“Students often just use their apartments to sleep in,” AFB’s CEO Rolf Svensson told The Local.

“They study in study dorms, have a social life outside of their homes, often can’t afford typical student housing… this is the perfect solution.”

The price of the bijoux dwellings are their main selling point, with the prospected cottages being rented for 2500 kronor ($370) a month, compared to the average newly built student apartment in Lund which is rented for 4167, yet three times the size.

“We have a catch-22 situation. There is a shortage of student housing and the housing board’s regulations result in high building costs, and therefore expensive apartments,” said Svensson in a statement.

Click here for a photo gallery of the apartment

“We want to get out of this by trying compact housing on a scientifically sound basis.”

The cottage features a kitchenette complete with dining area, a bathroom with toilet and shower and a sleeping loft. Student needs are not forgotten either – there’s a study desk below the sleeping area. There’s even an outside plot attached for those with green fingers.

Students interested in living in this experimental housing venture must be willing to earn their keep, however.

“The tenant must have social talents, and be ready to blog regularly about their lives in the flats,” AFB said in a statement.

“We received a 3 year permission from the municipality for this dwelling,” Svensson told The Local. “But we hope to prove that it’s not only liveable but also a great new idea.”

AFB requested permission to build 60 to 100 similar-sized apartments between 10 and 12 square metres. The request was rejected by the housing commission, due to ‘not following Sweden’s very strict building rules’ (according to Svensson), and not having adequate disabled access. An appeal has been made.

For students interested in competing for the cottage, the first home showings will be on Friday. The student who can best justify why they deserve the apartment will win the chance to live there.

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ECONOMY

Moderate party’s mortgage pledge ‘would harm Sweden’: Riksbank chief

The head of Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, has warned that suspending rules forcing banks to demand mortgage repayments from borrowers -- something pledged by the parties forming Sweden's next government -- would be "damaging for Sweden".

Published: 10 October 2022 13:46 CEST
Moderate party's mortgage pledge 'would harm Sweden': Riksbank chief

All four of the parties backing Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson as Sweden’s next prime minister said in the run up to September’s election that they would either suspend or reduce the so-called “amortisation requirement” once in government. 

But in an interview with the Aftonbladet newspaper, Stefan Ingves, who steps down as the bank’s governor at the end of this year, said that the measure would be poor economic policy in the current inflationary situation. 

“This is an inappropriate measure which would harm Sweden if you did it,” he said. “You’ve got to understand that we have enormous amounts of mortgage debt in the Swedish economy and that the mortgage market represents a risk for the economy.” 

“It would send an extremely unfortunate signal to say that as soon as it gets a bit more expensive to borrow, then you should stop amortising [paying off the interest],” he said.

Ingves’s statement came as Erik Thedéen, the general director of Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority, also criticised the proposal. 

“To use the amortisation tool in the same direction as during the pandemic would quite simply be a wrong measure,” he told Sweden’s state broadcaster SR in its regular Saturday interview. 

He said that if the new government wanted to help those who risk personal bankruptcy as a result of rising interest rates, there were much better ways of doing. 

“Only half of households have mortgages, and they typically have fairly strong finances,” he said. “So if we want to help those with the tightest margins, then this is an extremely poor measure, when there are a lot of better measures you could come up with when it comes to finance policy.”

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