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Here's how much it costs to rent an apartment in Sweden's biggest cities

The Local Sweden
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Here's how much it costs to rent an apartment in Sweden's biggest cities
The average price for a second-hand lease crept up in Sweden in 2017. Photo: Tomas Oneborg/SvD/TT

Prices for second-hand rentals went up by six percent across Sweden in 2017, according to new figures.

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The stats are in and they're not pretty, at least as far as renters' wallets are concerned. 

Sweden's tightly controlled rental market means that there's often a long wait to get your hands on a first-hand contract, leaving people battling to get their hands on a second-hand subletting lease.

One of the most popular market places for that is buy-sell site Blocket, which reports that in 2017, some 67,000 subletting listings for home rentals across Sweden were posted to its site.

The website noted in a report about second-hand rental prices published on Friday that not only were there more homes for rent, but they were more expensive too – on average six percent more costly than they were in 2016. 

READ ALSO: How to navigate Sweden's crazy rental market

A spokesperson from Blocket suggested that a general slowdown in the housing market at the end of 2017 translated into more expensive rentals. 

"There are probably a lot of people waiting to sell their home instead of risking a lukewarm response to a bidding process," Linnéa Aguero said in a statement. 

According to Blocket's adverts, the average monthly cost of a second-hand rental in Sweden is now 8,176 kronor ($1,009), according to the Blocket adverts. 

READ ALSO: A beginner's guide to buying an apartment in Sweden

Most of the homes for rent were in Stockholm, with 14,300 advertised last year – a rise of four percent compared to 2016. The cost of subletting a one-bedroom apartment increased by four percent compared to the previous year, and there was a hike of five percent for the two-bedroom apartments.

The report found that a one-bedroom flat in Stockholm costs, on average, 8,100 kronor. 

In Sweden's second-biggest city, Gothenburg, there were 5,200 sublets advertised throughout the year, with a typical one-bedroom home going for 5,600 kronor. The city saw a nine-percent increase in the rental prices for one-bedroom homes and a 13-percent increase for two-bed apartments.

Lastly, in Malmö, there were 3,000 such homes added to the buy-sell site, with an average cost for a one-bedroom apartment coming in at 4,900 kronor. One and two-bedroom homes saw price hikes of three and four percent respectively. 

It's no secret that housing is expensive in Sweden, but most people find themselves despairing over how hard it can be to find the apartments in the first place. These days Sweden's housing shortage is seen as a nationwide problem, with recent stats from the country's National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket) showing that 255 of Sweden's 290 municipalities now report a housing shortage

READ ALSO: The story of Sweden's housing crisis

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