Patrik Kronqvist
Finland used to be an easy match for Tre Kronor. But since 2019, Finland’s lions have won two World Cup golds and one Olympic gold in ice hockey, while Sweden has not even reached the podium.
However, it is nothing against the outclassing that Sweden receives in the housing struggle.
In February I traveled to Helsinki to write about the Finnish rental market. For Stockholmers – accustomed to a 30-year waiting period for an apartment in the city centre, fourth-hand contracts and black brokers – it appears as a mirage.
In the Finland of market rents, the rental sites look like Hemnet. You just have to browse between the homes and choose where you want to live and what you are prepared to pay in rent. In the capital alone, there are 10,000 vacant apartments – many with same-day occupancy.
Since my visit to Finland, the debate about the Finnish rental market has gathered momentum in Sweden.
The market-liberal think tank Timbro has written a whole report on Finland and from the left there has been rebuttal from, among others, the Tenants’ Association, Katalys and Dagens Arena.
Interestingly, nowadays everyone seems to agree that Finland is an example. The debate is mainly about what makes the Finnish model work better than the Swedish one.
The tenants’ association points out that the Finnish state supports new production, that the municipalities must produce buildable land and that the property tax punishes companies that do not use their building rights.
The tenants’ association blackmails the Finnish system, I wrote in a previous editorial. Although the organization is usually frightened by how terrible it would be with Finnish market rents in Sweden, it was a bad choice of words.
What the Tenants Association is doing now is not black painting but cherry picking.
It is claimed that Finland succeeds because it follows the prescriptions that the Tenants’ Association usually prescribes for Swedish politicians, such as state support and demands for more buildable land.
The tenant association’s points are not unimportant. Finland does not rely solely on market forces. The state does not hesitate to use tax money and legislation to achieve political goals. Housing allowances are very generous. It is important for the model to work and something that Sweden should also learn from.
In Sweden, tenants are forced to stand with hat in hand
But if you want to understand the Finnish housing success, you cannot close your eyes to the fact that it rests above all on three phenomena that the left in general, and the Tenants’ Association in particular, are trying to scare the Swedes with.
Owner apartments
One third of the rental market consists of apartments owned and rented out by private individuals. Over 350,000 Finns are landlords. This means that there are apartments to rent in all areas of the cities, it provides more capital for new construction and it strengthens competition in the market. Large housing companies cannot set the rent level alone.
Social housing
In a third of the rental market, rents are still regulated. But in order to move into these public apartments, you must not have too high a salary. The apartments are also not distributed strictly according to queue time – those with urgent housing needs go first. This means that homelessness and segregation have been able to be combated more effectively in Finland than in Sweden.
Market rents
In two-thirds of the Finnish rental stock, rents are set completely freely. The abolition of rent regulation in the 1990s is the main reason why the queues disappeared and the market worked better, all the experts, politicians and researchers I met in Helsinki agreed on that.
Finland’s rental market thus works well thanks to these three phenomena – not in spite of them.
But the intimidation campaigns from the left continue. Sometimes the exaggerations become downright comical. When Aftonbladet’s leader podcast Start the presses discussed owner-occupied apartments, the left-wing debater Daniel Suhonen went into a spin.
“There will be more Saudi billionaires who own many apartments to rent out on Airbnb in Sweden. It will be like in the financial district of London. The rest of us will live in Rotebro,” he said.
In the same episode, the Tenants’ Association’s chief economist Martin Hofverberg worried that market rents would mean that rental properties become less interesting for those who want permanent housing.
But we already have that situation in Sweden. When Expressen inspected the Tenants’ Association a few years ago, not a single one of the regional managers lived in a rental property. Even in the organization that claims to represent the tenants’ interests, the management prefers to live in villas.
I can’t blame them.
In the Swedish rental system, you cannot choose when to move in or exactly where to live. After years of queuing, you can, if you’re lucky, be offered one of the few apartments that come on the market – in existing condition.
In Sweden, tenants are forced to stand with hat in hand.
The example of Finland shows that we have created that hell all by ourselves – and that we have the power to break free. But then the left must also be prepared to slaughter its sacred cows.
That’s probably why the feelings are so strong.
Patrik Kronqvist is political editor and head of Expressen’s editorial page. Read more of his texts here.
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