zlacker

But what is driving the housing prices up in the Nordics? Population decline would suggest weakening demand. The EU is famous for long lasting housing so lack of new inventory shouldn't hit supply side that hard.

>>stonem+(OP)
Population decline lags affordable property shortages (see Japan [1], where property price declines are following after rural population declines). The results of fertility decisions take years, or even decades, to see (although total fertility rate and annual births is a lower lag indicator). For example, declining school enrollment in the US is from fertility decisions made half a decade ago [2], because that's about the time when those kids born would've enrolled.

If there is insufficient supply, housing prices go up.

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/14/japans-abandoned...

[2] https://www.ey.com/en_us/strategy/declining-enrollment-in-pu...

>>stonem+(OP)
The Swedish population is not declining. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/sweden-popula...

>>stonem+(OP)
I didn’t check, but it’s a safe bet the average number of people in a household decreased significantly.

That could increase demand even if the population decreased slightly (which it didn’t, according to another reply)

>>stonem+(OP)
Here in Norway it's primarily centralization. We used to have many living in small towns and cities along the coast and such, but young folks are moving to the larger cities[1].

This is driving up the demand a lot in central areas.

The houses left behind are not desirable for the same reason so many opt to keep them as summer homes, leading to shortages in the districs as well.

A lot of this has to do with jobs. We've lost a lot of jobs in the districs due to various reasons, and at some point these towns collapse. You need a certain minimum number of folks to have a decent school, a hospital etc. Once population drops too low the hospital gets shut down say and it's downhill from there.

[1]: https://www.nrk.no/vestland/byene-vokser-_-distriktene-blor-...

>>toomuc+8
I thought the house-as-an-asset mentality was the most to blame.

Are you sure most houses in the Nordics are occupied by the same family most of the time?

>>stonem+(OP)
Rising lifespans and immigration has made our population grow despite relatively low fertility.

Another huge problem right now is that the high prices has made it tricky for _older_ people to move, a large rent controlled apartment for an retired person is far cheaper than even the smallest new apartments if the lease is changed, so you have tons of retired people with kids that moved out (or should have moved out) living in 4-5 bedroom flats whilst families are crammed into smaller ones.

The only way out is to buy an apartment/house instead of renting, but here profit-taxation comes into play making elder people hesitant about selling because the huge price increases (often 90%) makes the 30% profit tax almost 30% of their selling price so they actually can't even afford to buy something reasonable since it'd anything relatively smaller would be too expensive for them.

One way out of this would be to lower the profit-tax of a dwelling by 0.5-1% for each year lived in it, that'd make retired people able to sell their dwellings w/o hardly any taxes and should enable a more dynamic market.

>>stonem+(OP)
A baby born today isn't going to add demand for housing for almost 2 decades.

>>stonem+(OP)
Housing policy, interest rates & urbanization are the usual factors everywhere, seems a safe null hypothesis here as well.

Eg in sweden, deregulation: https://www.thelocal.se/20230627/explained-swedens-plans-to-...

>>pjc50+t
Right!

In fact only Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia of the Northern Europe countries are showing a long term decline.

>>fiftee+Z1
Not really, the privately owned stock is divided into privatized rentals (often in condo like associations) and houses. Afaik Houses are free to own (but outside of Germans wanting vacation homes there hasn't been much of an outside influx), most condos on the other hand requires you to have your official residence there (an association might grant temporary rentals but most associations frowns upon too long term rentals and the exceptions are often granted on a yearly basis).

There's other issues though (see my sibling post to GP)

>>toomuc+8
We are thinking about a second kid now, and realized...we kind of screwed up. Women are really most fertile from their 20s to very early 30s (and also have the best chance of a healthy baby, etc...), it is a time when most people aren't even thinking about getting married yet these days, let alone having kids! When you finally figure out you are ready...well...it is much harder to have a kid.

So we really needed to think of this a few years ago. It might still be possible, but now it is an uphill battle and will be a much higher risk pregnancy to boot.

>>seanmc+Ic
If the woman is 35 and over it is called a geriatric pregnancy. Need to do a bunch of additional tests to make sure the kid doesn't have genetic defects.

>>thijso+5g
Fun (?) fact: Birth defect risk for an over 40 pregnancy is the same as with a first cousin.

>>stonem+(OP)
Mass immigration seems to be the global reason.

>>ipaddr+Ai
Only makes sense if you also restrict housing supply, otherwise we just build more housing.

If we had high birth rates without building housing that would also drive up housing prices.

>>cortes+P3
A couple with a house not large enough to support a child the way they want does add to the housing demand, or they skip the kid.

>>toomuc+8
If you're waiting for your life to be stable enough to have children, most likely you're never going to have them.

As years go by, life becomes more complicated, not less. With or without children.

Having children also involves sacrifice, improvisation, unpredictability, suffering... and lots of people are apparently allergic to all of those things.

>>hahama+Wi3
> Having children also involves sacrifice, improvisation, unpredictability, suffering... and lots of people are apparently allergic to all of those things.

Rightfully so. There is no extra credit for unnecessarily burdening yourself.

>>whizzt+x2
Another factor keeping older people in place is that they've put a lot of energy into the yard or their house to make it the way they want it to be. For example, if my mom, a still sharp and active 90-year-old, couldn't live independently, and spend time in her garden, she would probably pass in 2 - 3 months. Expiration after loss of independence and access to the outdoors is a common way to die in my family.