House prices were up 3% y-o-y in 2019
The nationwide house price index rose by 3% during 2019, in sharp contrast to a 3.68% y-o-y decline in 2018, as the impact of stricter mortgage requirements weakens. Quarter-on-quarter, house prices declined slightly by 0.29% during the latest quarter.
House prices surged more than 38% (inflation-adjusted) in the past 6 years, and by a whopping 155% in the past two decades.
Demand steady; supply falling. During 2019, the total number of homes sold in one- to two-dwelling buildings rose slightly by 0.7% y-o-y to 55,084 units, following a slight decline of 0.5% in 2018, according to Statistics Sweden.
Dwelling starts in newly constructed one- to two-dwelling buildings in Sweden fell by almost 20% y-o-y in the first three quarters of 2019 to 6,931 units and by 14.1% to 26,233 units in multi-dwelling buildings. Over the same period, dwelling completions also dropped 21.5% to 7,016 units in one- to two-dwelling buildings and increased by a miniscule 0.3% to 29,121 units in multi-dwelling buildings.
Rents, rental yields: yields figures are hard to get.
Stockholm apartment costs are around €6,991 per sq. m.
| Sweden: typical city centre apartment buying price, monthly rent (120 sq. m) | |||
| Buying price | Rate per month | Yield | |
| Stockholm | € 838,920 | n.a. | n.a. |
Recent news: The Swedish economy was estimated to have expanded by about 1.1% last year, after annual growth rates of 2.3% in 2018, 2.4% in 2017, 2.4% in 2016, 4.4% in 2015 and 2.7% in 2014.
Recently, Sweden’s Finance Ministry revised downwards its 2020 growth projections for the country to just 1.1%, from an earlier forecast of 1.4%, amidst global economic uncertainty. More specifically, Germany’s lackluster economic growth is adversely affecting Swedish exporters.
