Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

PROPERTY

Stockholm rent controls favour the wealthy: report

Stockholm's rent controls benefit wealthy residents in the city centre and do nothing to fight economic segregation with those living in the suburbs, according to a new report from the Swedish Property Federation (Fastighetsägarna Stockholm).

Published: 23 August 2013 10:12 CEST

Stockholm rent controls favour the wealthy: report

“Rent control is a shield for well-established insiders who already have a home. Not for those households that it was meant to shield,” Christer Jansson, the CEO of the federation, wrote in an opinion article published in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper on Friday.

SEE ALSO: Find the newest home listings in The Local’s Property Section

According to Jansson, rent control works as a protection for those already living at sought-after addresses and that residents who have first-hand rental contracts in desirable neighbourhoods near the city centre have higher incomes.

“One of the strongest arguments made by those protecting the current rent control system is that it works against economic segregation and makes it possible for the economically weak households to live in attractive areas in the centre of the city,” he said in a statement.

“Our report shows that this is not the case.”

The report measured the median income around the city by suburb, as well as the percentage of the population in each area receiving some kind of public benefits.

SEE ALSO: Find your next home with The Local’s Rentals Section

In Norrmalm, central Stockholm, the annual average disposable income per family was found to be 67 percent higher that that in Rinkeby/Kista in the northern reaches of the city. Norrmalm has just 1 percent of its residents receiving support, compared to 18 percent in Rinkeby/Kista.

Income was found to be 25 percent higher on the island of Södermalm than in Farsta, with just 3 percent of Södermalm residents reliant on support compared to 8 percent.

Jansson argued that the rental market in Stockholm suffers from a range of problems including low production levels for new homes, housing queues that are decades long, and a demoralizing black market.

TT/The Local/og

Follow The Local on Twitter

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

How to buy your own Swedish island

How can I find an island for sale?

Perhaps surprisingly, you can find islands for sale in the same places you find other properties in Sweden, for example on property site Hemnet, or directly through an estate agent.

As you may expect, people who own their own islands often want to hang onto them, so they don’t come up for sale very often.

If you’re still interested in finding your dream island, then try searching egen ö till salu (own island for sale), and be prepared that you’ll probably have to wait a while before one comes up in your ideal area.

You might also get lucky and be able to find a property which just happens to include a small island with it (for example, a property by a lake or by the sea), but there’s no guarantee that the island would be big enough to actually do anything with – and if it is, the price of the property would no doubt reflect this.

Can I build on it?

Islands usually fall into two categories: those where there is already some sort of house or building (like a lighthouse, for example), and those which are completely untouched.

Bear in mind that the rules on building on islands are pretty strict. Firstly, you’ll need to apply for planning permission (yes, even if you own the whole island), which can be difficult.

Essentially, all Swedish coastlines are protected under strandskyddet (literally: “beach protection”), which means that they must be accessible to the public and cannot be built on or fenced off for private use. The exact area which must be protected varies, but as a general rule you’ll have to keep the shoreline accessible 100 metres inland – going up to 300 metres in some cases.

Under allemansrätten, the right to roam, members of the public must be able to access the coastline, so even if you have your own island which you build your own jetty on, you can’t stop people from turning up and mooring at your jetty to lounge on the rocks.

The only exception to this is if they’re so close to your home they disturb your hemfrid, literally “home peace”, for example if they’d be able to see into your property or would feasibly intrude on your private life.

The downside to this hemfrid rule is that it can sometimes get in the way of planning permission – if a rebuild or extension to your home would extend your hemfrid so much that it would encroach on the public right to access the coastline (even if it’s something as simple as putting in larger windows or building a small veranda), then your application could be rejected.

So essentially, you might need to forget about your dreams of a supervillain-style lair on your own private island.

How much does it cost?

Island prices vary wildly, depending on things like the size of your island, how close it is to a major city, and whether it has buildings or pre-approved planning permission.

Expect to pay a couple million kronor for a larger island (like this one) close to Stockholm or Gothenburg (yes, even if you can’t build anything on it).

Lilla Kattskäret, an island in Norrtälje around an hour from Stockholm with a handful of small buildings and two separate jetties, sold in August for just under 10 million kronor.

If you’re right in the middle of the city centre, you might see islands listed with no price at all, like this island complete with summer house, guest house and another, smaller island. A stone’s throw from Drottningholm Palace – the home of the Swedish King and Queen – this might be a case of “if you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can’t afford it”.

And don’t forget – you’ll need your own boat to access it, too.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!