Study of converting rental apartments into “ownership”
El Combes – Stockholm: Housing Minister Andreas Carlsson has announced that the government intends to enable more people to own their homes, and has therefore launched an investigation into how this can be achieved.
“The threshold of owning a home is very high in Sweden, so we will provide the opportunity for more people to realize their housing dreams,” the minister said in a press conference today.
Carlson pointed to the need to build more housing across the country, to allow for a variety of forms of housing, which is not present in the housing market today.
The minister considered that enabling more people to own their homes leads to an increase in their sense of responsibility towards their homes and living environment.
--The investigation will study the expansion of the ownership system in housing, and present a new model for renting and buying housing.
Since 2009, Sweden has implemented a new system that includes only new apartments, called Ägarlägenhet, in which the owner can buy 100 percent of the apartment, in contrast to the ownership of housing units (Bostadsrätt), in which the owner becomes a partner in the owners’ association, and only buys the right to live in a specific apartment.
“The government currently wants to expand this so that rental apartments can be converted into ownership apartments, not only in new buildings but in existing ones as well,” the housing minister said.
