Nine Years for a Flat

r@raphaelbauer.com (Raphael Bauer) — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0200

The average tenant who got the keys to a rent-controlled flat in Stockholm last year had waited nine years for it¹. For a flat in the inner city the wait was twenty-one years². Nobody set out to build that. Sweden set out to build a system in which rents were negotiated collectively and held below what the market would charge: a reasonable aim, and one it achieved. The queue is the price of that success, and it is paid in years by people who are not yet in the room when the policy is decided.

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Nine Years for a Flat