This year's last month continued the decline on the housing market in Sweden, according to figures from the state-owned bank SBAB and the housing website Booli.
The prices of condominium apartments fell by an average of 1.1 percent, while the prices of villas fell by 1.3 percent.
There is a clear seasonal pattern in housing prices, where they often rise during the spring, stagnate during the summer, bounce back in August when a new term begins and many people take the opportunity to change jobs, and then fall back during the autumn and especially towards the end of the year, says SBAB's chief economist Robert Boije.
Apartment prices may be overvalued
The decline on the apartment side in December was largest in Greater Stockholm, and on the villa side, it was largest in northern Sweden. Boije says it's difficult to explain the ups and downs in individual regions, but suspects that the decline in villa prices in northern Sweden is related to the crisis for battery manufacturer Northvolt with a factory in Skellefteå.
It was almost hysterical on Skellefteå's housing market for a while. Now, the pressure isn't quite as great as before, so I guess it's reflected in the figures, says Boije.
However, during the year as a whole, prices for both apartments and villas have risen. For apartments, the increase is significantly larger than for villas, an increase of 7.1 percent compared to 2.7 percent.
I'm actually a bit surprised that apartment prices have done as well as they have. There has been a lot of discussion, not least in the media, about how many housing associations haven't raised their fees in line with cost increases, says Boije and continues:
Maybe all homebuyers aren't fully aware of this, so possibly apartment prices are a bit overvalued.
SBAB predicts price increases in the near future
Will the price decline continue at the beginning of 2025?
If nothing unexpected happens, both apartment prices and villa prices should rise during the spring. Probably, villa prices will rise a bit later in the spring when the lawns start to become green. We're counting on natural seasonal patterns with rising prices during the spring until the summer.
