The fall in apartment prices stands out in the monthly figures from state-owned SBAB and the housing website Booli, and was larger than the fall in house prices.
Apartment prices fell by 4.6 percent in July for Sweden as a whole, while house prices fell by 1.4 percent. Apartment prices fell the most in Greater Stockholm, where they dropped by a hefty 7.1 percent.
Robert Boije, chief economist at SBAB, is himself surprised and has no explanation for what is driving the price fall.
The price decline in Greater Stockholm really stands out, he says, but notes that it cannot be explained by any fall in apartment prices in central Stockholm, but affects the county as a whole.
Larger than usual in the summer
Housing prices tend to slow down during the summer months when people are on vacation and taking it easy and housing turnover is lower.
But this has been taken into account in the index, according to Boije.
The price drop for apartments is significantly greater than it usually is during the summer, he says, and also rejects macroeconomic explanations.
In that case, we would have seen an equally large price drop in villas.
Normalization
Despite the price drop in July, Stockholm, along with Malmö, is the region where housing prices have fallen the least since spring 2022, when they fell after a long period of rises. Therefore, one could speak of a certain normalization from the high housing prices in 2022, argues Boije, who, however, does not want to draw any conclusions until the August figures come in.
It is then when many people start working and studying and change homes that prices jump up, only to then stabilize again, he says.
Housing prices fell by 2.4 percent in July as a whole in Sweden.
Prices fell in four out of six regions and most in northern Sweden (-2.9 percent) and Greater Stockholm (-2.5 percent).
House prices fell by 1.4 percent for Sweden as a whole.
In Greater Gothenburg, however, house prices were the only region to rise by 1.4 percent.
For Greater Stockholm, house prices fell by 2.5 percent.
In one region, Stormalmö, apartment prices rose by 2.4 percent.
However, measured based on adjusted seasonal and other temporary effects, apartment prices fell by 0.7 percent in the country as a whole and house prices rose by 0.5 percent.
The forecast from SBAB is that housing prices will rise by between 4 and 5 percent per year for both 2026 and 2027.
Sources: SBAB and Booli.
