[tazjin]

It should be noted that in Swedish cities, especially Stockholm, there is also a completely dysfunctional housing market.

I have personally rented long-term flats in a bunch of cities: Cologne, Stockholm, Oslo, London, Hurghada, Moscow.

Out of these the housing market in Stockholm was by far the worst experience (with the easiest being Oslo & Hurghada). There's nothing on the market because of rent control, official queues are impossibly long (O(years) for anything) and second-hand (third-, ...) apartments are an absolute mess (few tenant rights, tons of short-term contracts, lots of random small issues).

In Stockholm this hits foreigners especially hard as lots of Swedes have inherited a bostadsrätt or hyresrätt (the official equivalents of owning/renting property) and rarely deal with this directly.

In comparison megacities like Moscow and London are much easier to deal with. The market is rough due to often fierce competition but there are tons of properties available for renting and buying at any quality & price point.