[mijamo]

Sweden Public housing is terrible. You get in the queue at 16/18 and maybe maybe when you're 30 you can get a nice 2 rooms apartment on the suburbs. Except if you managed to either buy someone's contract illegally, or use family connections to get in front of the queue. If you are a recent immigrant there is basically no point going in the queue and you will be forced to expensive second hand contract and move every year as they expire.

And then there's no logic to prices. You will get something cheaper in your 50s because you waited so long that you can finally get a nice spacious apartment for no money at all in the city center, while a student will have to pay more than that to get a shitty corridor room in the suburbs. Real life example: a friend paying 6000kr for a room in the suburbs as a student vs a 40yo lady with a good income paying the same for a 2 bedroom appartment in the center (market rent for second hand contracts for such a flat is about 19 000kr). And then you have newly built public housing in the suburbs that has prices 2-3 times more expensive than the old ones in the center for the same size, but those you can get without waiting whereas the old ones need more than 20 years of queue to get.

It is probably the most broken system in Sweden, but it kind of seems to be by design to be honest. I would actually have liked a well functioning and supplied public housing market, compared to the annoying parts of the private market in most countries, but swedish rules have just made it a nightmare instead

[avar]

The Netherlands has essentially the same system. It's not broken, it's by design.

The system is meant to benefit long-term residents at the cost of everyone else. It's not there to provide a general housing subsidy.

[cinntaile]

The reason why the price between the student apartment and the regular apartment differs so much has a lot more to do with when they were built. The 2 room bedroom apartment was likely built during a time when building was much cheaper. Student apartments on the other hand are usually much newer.

[orwin]

In France it's the same in tight markets, but in small, declining towns you can get public housing in less than a year.

[naruvimama]

It is the same system in Denmark. It started out with good intentions but has now been skewed to create more inequality.

The property tax in some new areas even in the suburbs is more than or only slightly less than the total rent in the some social housing in the center of the city. Some of these areas do not even have public heating.

It has become reverse socialism, steal from the poor and subsidise the rich.