Few municipal apartments are sold

The trend continued in 2021 – the municipal housing companies are selling fewer of their apartments. Just over 3,900 apartments were sold during the year.

Of the 1,203 apartments sold for conversion to condominiums, the majority, 917 apartments, were sold in Stockholm.

In other municipalities where it was sold to tenant-owner associations; Österåker, Krokom, Sigtuna, Gothenburg, Alingsås and Stenungsund, sales were much more modest and varied between 2 and 77 apartments.

Few buyers among private customers

The number of rental apartments sold has varied greatly during the 2000s. In 2008–2010, it was sold the most. The top listing of 17,657 apartments sold was reached in 2008. At that time, it was often tenant-owner associations that bought. Today, the private companies have taken over.

Among the 2,513 apartments sold to private companies in 2021, it is a deal that stands out: in the municipality of Linköping, the municipal company Stångåstadens sold 1,118 apartments to the company Heimstaden.

The other major deals took place in Sollentuna (456 apartments sold), Svedala (208), Halmstad (174) and Motala (114). In the other 23 municipalities with sales, an average of 19 apartments were sold per municipality.

Increases but still shrinks

At the same time as few apartments were sold, the municipal housing companies built 7,667 apartments. Here, too, there are large local differences: 60 percent of new production has taken place in eight municipalities in the three metropolitan regions.

The new construction minus the sales provides a net addition of 4,250 apartments in the public utility. Nevertheless, the municipal companies’ share of the housing market decreases somewhat as the number of apartments owned by housing associations from 2020 to 2021 increased by just over 18,000 and the company-owned apartments became 23,000 more.

– When it comes to market shares, there is a big difference between different places in the country. We believe that the municipalities need strong public housing companies to really be able to take on their statutory housing responsibility. But there is also a need for active private landlords and competition on equal terms, says Jörgen Mark-Nielsen, who is head of social policy at the interest organization Sweden’s public utility.

Deficit widespread

Despite all sales and all new construction, 204 of the country’s 290 municipalities report deficits in the housing market. Those who have difficulty in the housing market are young people, students and new arrivals, but also people with disabilities and older people who want or need to change homes.

Nearly half of the municipalities state a lack of a detailed plan for attractive land and high production costs as obstacles to housing construction.

– Unfortunately, there is a risk that construction will decrease even more in the future. In the past year, construction costs have increased by more than twelve percent. This makes it almost impossible to build new homes with rents that most people can afford to pay, says Jörgen Mark-Nielsen.