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by bjourne 1753 days ago
Finland has social housing and also has much larger housing subsidies than Sweden. When Finland abolished its rent control, rents in some places almost doubled. Seniors and others couldn't afford to pay the higher rents so they had to increase housing subsidies to them so that they wouldn't become homeless. That Finnish tax money directly becomes profits to landlords doesn't seem like a great situation to me.
1 comments
ecmascript 1753 days ago
I don't understand what the difference is, at least you can get an apartment in Finland. Prices in Helsinki (even if its a much smaller city) is a lot more reasonable and you have a lot more rights than you'll have in Sweden.

If you think old people can get an apartment in Sweden, that is just laughable. Even in smaller cities the queues are like 10 years. You'll have to pay up

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toxik 1753 days ago
The difference is that landlords pocket the excess and whoever isn’t subsidized gets fucked over.
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bjourne 1753 days ago
In Helsinki rents rose by 40% after rent control was abolished and in other parts of the country by 26%. The average rent per m^2 is 11.3 euro in Stockholm and 19.5 euro in Helsinki. Furthermore, Finland spends three times as much on subsidizing poor tenants that can't pay their rent than what Sweden does. There is subsidized housing in Finland called Ara-housing, but the queuing time for those apartments is six to seven years. References here: https://www.etc.se/ekonomi/sa-blev-konsekvenserna-av-marknad...
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filleokus 1753 days ago
> The average rent per m^2 is 11.3 euro in Stockholm and 19.5 euro in Helsinki.

With the difference being that 19.5 EUR would give me a square meter in Helsinki tomorrow. 11.3 EUR doesn't give me anything in Stockholm for the next decade. ≈ 30 EUR give me a second hand semi-short term contract in Stockholm.

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ecmascript 1753 days ago
ETC is a leftist media organisation so that they would promote rent control is a given. I wouldn't trust what they have to say about the matter. Do you know why no one builds new renting apartments in Sweden? It is because you cannot make a profit on them. You can instead build BRFs and make a lot of money. So everyone is doing that. They maximize the loans of the new BRF so they have to spend as little as possible of their own money.

Six to seven years is nothing compared to Sweden where you can have queues about 20-30 years easily for the big cities. My GF have 12 years in the queue and she can get a decent apartment in the outskirts of Stockholm but that is about it.

There are special housing for elderly, which is a bit shorter in the queues but still very long.

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bjourne 1752 days ago
That's a rubbish objection. Attack the message - not the messenger. I cited the paper so that you can verify that the figures I provided are correct. Furthermore, new rental apartments already are excluded from rent control so rent control can't be the reason so few apartments of any type is being built. 20-30 years is for the most desirable areas of Stockholm (Gamla stan) and is not the median queuing time.
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