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RENTING

New record as Stockholm apartment waiting list grows to 810,000 people

More people are now queuing for a rental apartment in Stockholm than at any other point since records began.

New record as Stockholm apartment waiting list grows to 810,000 people
Are you one of many waiting for an apartment in Stockholm? Photo: Christine Olsson/Scanpix

At the end of August, 810,000 people were registered in the Stockholm housing agency’s waiting list for rental apartments – the highest figure since the agency was founded in 1947, reports Swedish daily newspaper DN.

The queue passed the half million mark just six years ago, and this year it’s growing by more than 4,000 people every month, compared to more than 3,000 last year.

Part of the reason behind the rapid increase may be that rising interest rates are putting more and more people off buying an apartment rather than renting — or simply blocking them altogether from becoming homeowners. According to the housing agency, cheap apartments are especially popular.

Sweden’s tightly regulated rental market means that so-called “first-hand contracts” are rented out by local authorities or major companies rather than by small, private landlords. They have the benefit of being relatively cheap compared to other countries, so competition tends to be tough.

You generally get your hands on a first-hand rental by signing up for the council’s housing queue. Many Swedes sign up for these queues as soon as they turn 18, so for a lot of foreigners moving to Sweden as adults, getting a first-hand rental is usually a pipe dream, at least in the big cities.

Stockholm’s housing agency in August also rented out the highest number of apartments since 1947, with first-hand leases signed for 2,140 homes. The average wait for these was 9.1 years.

IN STATS:

The 810,000 figure doesn’t mean that all of those people are actively looking for an apartment. It is not uncommon to sign up for rental queues even if you’re not thinking of moving any time soon, in order to collect queue points and improve your chances of renting an apartment in the future.

A person may also in theory have been in the queue for their entire life, waiting until selling the family home after retirement to use their points to move into a smaller, low-rent apartment. So when figures say that an apartment went to a person with, say, 30 years’ worth of queue points, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that person had been waiting the past three decades for a home.

But even if individual figures are hard to interpret, the acute rental housing shortage in Stockholm is real and means that people generally do have to wait several years to get a first-hand lease.

The average queue time for an apartment in central Stockholm was just under 18 years in 2022, according to the housing agency, compared to less than six years in neighbouring municipalities such as Nykvarn, Södertälje, Sigtuna, Upplands Väsby, Upplands-bro and Österåker.

In August, the shortest waiting time was one month for a two-room apartment in Södertälje, southwest of Stockholm, and 36.8 years for an apartment for over-65s in Södermalm.

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PROPERTY

INTERVIEW: ‘Most foreigners in Sweden don’t know they can get back excess rent’

In Sweden, people subletting apartments are not allowed to charge more in rent than they themselves pay. But foreign subtenants don't always know this. We asked Roland Sjölin, lawyer at the Swedish Tenants' Association, about how to get back excess rent.

INTERVIEW: 'Most foreigners in Sweden don't know they can get back excess rent'

More and more of the people asking the Swedish Tenants’ Association, Hyresgästföreningen in Swedish, for help with excess rent are foreigners, Sjölin told The Local in an interview.

“The problem is that if you’re coming from another country, and you’re subletting an apartment, you’re probably not familiar with the rules in Sweden, because in other countries, it might be okay to overcharge your tenants.” 

He said that clients from India in particular seeking help from the association were now “very common”. 

“Many people come here to work as engineers in the IT sector and then have to rent somewhere,” he said, adding that as a group Indians appeared to be “very aware of their rights.”

Sweden’s rental sector is heavily regulated, with first hand contracts negotiated between landlords and the Tenants’ Association, and the rent that can be charged for second-hand contracts limited to only a small fraction above what the first-hand renter pays. 

“You’re not allowed to make any profit subletting an apartment in Sweden,” Sjölin explains. “You can only charge the subletting tenant the same rent as you [the first-hand tenant] are paying to your landlord, and then you can add the costs for internet and electricity, and perhaps a parking lot, if that is included.” 

Tenants’ Association lawyer Roland Sjölin. Photo: supplied.

You can also add a påslag or “markup”, if you are renting out the apartment fully furnished, but this cannot exceed more than 15 percent of the rent. 

That doesn’t mean that most landlords follow the law. The competition for rental apartments, especially in Stockholm, is so intense, that unscrupulous sublet landlords often try to get away with charging well over the legal amount, charging what is known in Sweden as ockerhyra, or “excess rent” and hoping that their tenants are too desperate to complain.  

What many foreigners do not realise is that even after the rental period is over, they can still get back any excess rent they have paid by applying to the Rental Board or Hyresnämnden, which functions like a court judging rental disputes. 

“If you have the evidence then it’s fairly easy,” Sjölin said. “I get a new case every second week on repayment of unfair rent, and I think that I win most of them.” 

“Nowadays, you can get paid back excess rent up to 24 months back in time, so people tend to get more money,” he added. “In some cases, they can get 200,000 kronor. In other cases, perhaps it’s only 30,000 kronor or 60,000 kronor. It depends on how long you have rented the apartment, and how excessive the rent you’ve been paying has been.”

The first step is to establish what would have been a fair rent, either by asking your landlord what they themselves pay directly or by checking with the Tenants’ Association.

“Because we negotiate most rents in Sweden, we normally know what the firsthand rent is,” Sjölin explained.

Then you need to collect together your evidence.

“It’s a good thing to have a written contract and also papers from your bank showing that you paid rent every month, and perhaps photographs of the apartment, so the rental board can get an idea of the apartment you were renting and what would be a fair rent, and also the termination for the contract so you can show the court how long you’ve been living in the apartment.” 

But Sjölin underlined that since Sweden has free burden of evidence, none of this is essential. 

“Even if you’ve been paying in cash, if you have witnesses who can testify what you were paying each month, you still have a chance of getting your money back. It’s a bit more tricky, but I’ve won two cases like that this year.” 

People in Sweden, he explained, tend to wait until the rental period is over before seeking to get paid back excess rent rather than challenging their landlord while they are still living in the apartment. 

“You don’t have any legal protection for your home for the first two years, so if you bring the matter up with the person you’re renting the apartment from you risk losing your contract and having to move out, so most people wait until they’re supposed to move anyway,” he said.

If you apply to the rental board for a refund close to the day you move out, you can then make your landlord pay back all excess rent paid in the 24 months leading up to the date you contacted the rental board.

If you are a member of the Tenants’ Association, you can contact them and ask for help with your application, but there are also specialist companies, like Orimlig Hyra AB who will buy your case off you and give you a refund within 48 hours, saving you a long wait in exchange for a cut of the money reclaimed. 

Sjölin said that the rental board normally took about 8 months to come to a judgement, but that if the person with the first hand contract appeals, that could extend the waiting time by between six months and a year.

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