In a new report on the housing market, the Mäklarsamfundet has investigated whether the demand for larger apartments and above all villas will change when fewer and fewer children are born. And the result is not as you might think that the childless prefer to live centrally in an apartment, in the big city.
Villa dream strong
Just over 1,000 people was asked in the study. 42 percent of the voluntarily childless answered that the villa is the type of housing they would most like to live in. Even among those with children and those who wanted children, the villa was ranked highest, 61 percent chose that type of housing.
– This shows that the demand for detached houses and villas will be high even in a future where significantly fewer children are born, says Oskar Öholm.
The real estate association points out that for a long time, as a proportion of total construction, few single-family houses and larger apartments have been built. They warn of the risk that housing policy will run into the ditch if new housing is planned on the basis that the childless want to live centrally in an apartment. Instead, they believe that villas will increasingly be in demand by couples with good household finances who are not burdened by one or more children.
– It is not large wholesaler villas that are in demand, but smaller detached houses or chain houses that may need to be built to meet the demand among those without children in the growth regions, says Oskar Öholm.
Mobility in single-family housing is also expected to become more stagnant when the aging part of the population, which has established itself in single-family housing, lives there longer, according to the report.