måndag 17 september 2007

Swedish house prices



Swedish house prices in millions of SEK.
Stockholm: 3,4 mkr (+15%)
Skåne: 2,1 mkr (+11%)
Halland: 2,0 mkr (+8%)
Uppsala: 1,9 mkr (+9%)
Västra Götaland: 1,8 mkr (+12%)
Gotland: 1,6 mkr (+15%)
Södermanland: 1,6 mkr (+9%)
Östergötland: 1,6 mkr (+8%)
Västmanland: 1,5 mkr (+7%)
Blekinge: 1,2 mkr (+5%)
Jönköping: 1,1 mkr (+3%)
Kronoberg: 1,1 mkr (+8%)
Örebro: 1,1 mkr (+6%)
Västerbotten: 1,1 mkr (+12%)
Jämtland: 1,0 mkr (+16%)
Kalmar: 1,0 mkr (+9%)
Värmland: 0,9 mkr (+9%)
Gävleborg: 0,9 mkr (+8%)
Dalarna: 0,9 mkr (+6%)
Västernorrland: 0,8 mkr (+10%)
Norrbotten: 0,8 mkr (+8%)

Storstadsområdena

Stor-Stockholm: 3,4 mkr (+15%)
Stor-Malmö: 2,7 mkr (+10%)
Stor-Göteborg: 2,6 mkr (+11%)

Source: Källa och defenitioner: Statisktiska Centralbyråns småhusbarometer. Siffran i parantes anger prisförändringen jämfört med samma period 2006.
Figures in brackets are increase compared with 2006. One million kronor is about £75,000, which is roughly equal to the value of the building.

This is very interesting. The prices look dirt cheap compared to the UK. A typical house - about 90sq metres floor area, in SE England is 4,000,000 SEK and that will be in quite a poor area with rotten public transport. And in Greater London nearer 6,000,000 SEK.

Of course, most of that is land value. The value of the actual bricks and mortar is around 1,000,000 SEK which shows that the land value outside the main cities in Sweden is very low.

Since the division in Britain is primarily between those who own property (land) and those who do not, this could go a long way to explaining why Sweden does not have the inequality problem that Britain suffers from. And why Swedes seem to enjoy a higher standard of living. They are not burdened for half a lifetime with huge debts to pay for the land their homes stand on.

4 kommentarer:

Florestan sa...

Oh, I wouldn't say dirt cheap, it's the UK (not to mention London area) which is unbelievably expensive.
And "our" prices have a downside; guess what we'd get for our two country houses (in the district of Västernorrland) right by the lake in lovely surroundings? Close to nothing.

Henry sa...

Presumably you would get the value of the building? ie what it would cost to build it, minus the cost of any repairs that need to be done. Or would you?

Florestan sa...

Is there a particular reason for that, or just common sense? No, there's no guarantee we'd ever get what it costs anyone in time, material and labour to build two houses.
We get a buyer would pay, straight market economy. Another reason for distributism...

Henry sa...

There is a reason, which is that it is unlikely that anyone would have built the houses there in the first place if there was a better location they could have been put. The best location available free of charge is defined as the "margin" in Ricardian theory. Of course circumstances can change eg a train service may have existed once but no longer runs. In which case the person building the house would not get their money back. On the other hand, the area may have become more attractive eg because a town grew up nearby and became prosperous, in which case land which was marginal now has a value. And as you say, you get what a buyer would pay, with these considerations governing the actual amount.

I am keen on distributism. But nobody seems to have worked out what kind of legislative and fiscal structures would be needed to achieve the desired objectives.

I have long had my own views on what is required for this, which I have referred to from time to time on the blog. It would amount to, in effect, an updating of the feudal system. From that perspective, Left and Right are Wrong.

Are you the only distributist in the land? And by the way, you may not realise or appreciate this from your position, but you have a thriving church which appears to be in good shape, and that is something to be thankful about.

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