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Well, if you are increasing the population a lot, all of those people are going to need somewhere to live. It isn't really hard to figure that out but most peop

Well, if you are increasing the population a lot, all of those people are going to need somewhere to live. It isn't really hard to figure that out but most people don't seem to make that connection. Don't understand how it could even be remotely racist or popular. The statistics of housing prices correlates very well with increases in immigration. Of course, correlation does not imply causation but in this case I'm personally pretty convinced it is the main causation of the extreme increases. Regarding the falling prices, yes, I believe they were about to fall even before the massive influx of new people (because of all the other things mentioned) but were artificially held up a couple of extra years due to new people.

tmikaeld 9y ago
I'm kind of expecting to see a chain reaction happening next.. - Housing falls - Investors sell - Stock drops - SEK value drops (We are here) - Import prices goes up - Goods prices goes up - Less people are wiling to buy goods due to risk - Wages go down - People are let go - Fewer people are willing to buy goods - and so on..
- jordanb 9y ago
  Your chain breaks at "less people willing to buy goods due to risk". SEK going down will push the costs of imports up. It will also make Swedish exports more competitive. Imports being more costly will cause Swedish consumers to substitute imported goods with local alternatives. The net will be that wages will go up and unemployment will go down. This is good. But the price of goods will become dear to the Swedish consumer and this is bad. And there's a possibility of a wage/price spiral driving up inflation.
  - tmikaeld 9y ago
    Good point!
phaemon 9y ago
> Well, if you are increasing the population a lot But you aren't increasing the population "a lot", now are you? You linked to a graph that shows around 350,000 asylum seekers over 5 years. What percentage of Sweden's population is that?
- rayiner 9y ago
  It's over 3.5% of the total population, which is equivalent to the U.S. adding about a million people. Also note that they're going to be concentrated into relatively few urban areas, instead of being spread out over the entire country.
  - hjnilsson 9y ago
    Uhh, would be US adding 10 million, not one million.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - phaemon 9y ago
    So, 3.5% over 5 years, is about 0.7% per year. And that's the main cause of the housing problem in Sweden? I'm very skeptical. > note that they're going to be concentrated into relatively few urban areas Well surely that's a more likely cause, right? Not the actual number, but how they're being distributed.
- dijit 9y ago
  Bigger than the population of the third largest city in Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%B6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%B6
SiempreViernes 9y ago
In 92 there was a five times jump in asylum applications from the previous year (to 69 000 people), can you guess what inflation adjusted house prices index did at that time, and some time on? It takes great effort to see a correlation between yearly applications (between 2000 and 2008 an average of 25 k persons varying with at most 30%, 7 years below that average and 3 above) and house price index (steadily up 62 % from 2000 to 2007, never failing to increase from one year to another). https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Ekonomi/Hushallens-ekonomi/Bostadspriser/ https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Ekonomi/Hushallens-ekonomi... https://www.migrationsverket.se/download/18.585fa5be158ee6bf362fd2/1485556063045/Asyls%C3%B6kande+till+Sverige+2000-2016.pdf https://www.migrationsverket.se/download/18.585fa5be158ee6bf...
- wjnc 9y ago
  Do you have any data on the supply of housing for the corresponding time periods and perhaps the mix of rental v ownership?
pimmen 9y ago
So, could you explain why the housing prices fell in the 90s when we took in more refugees than ever before? And why they rose considerably when immigration slowed down in the mid 2000s? Because, for some reason you're convinced immigration is the main cause of rising housing prices and that the two clearly correlates, even though you can only back that up with stats that are about a decade old, any older than that and the correlation disappears. Maybe I'm missing something?
- staticelf 9y ago
  I don't really have any data from the 90s and I wasn't very old back then so I cannot really say anything about it. And stop putting words into my mouth. I wrote that I believe immigration is the main cause of the most extreme increases not the main cause of rising housing prices in general. The difference is that the number of people Sweden has recieved is so much larger 2013-2016 so basically every system we had failed and all municipalities was forced to buy apartments. If you have stable immigration that are predictable it's easy to plan ahead and adjust the society for it but when it comes like 160k people in one year to such a small country as Sweden everything fails. Of course this will have economic effects such as in the housing market.
  - pimmen 9y ago
    Fair enough, I’ll stop putting words in your mouth. SiemperVernes supplied stats that showed that the correlation goes from weak to non-existant when you look at the past three decades, despite the fact that the early 90s was record years of immigration. You said the correlation was clear and that you think it’s the main cause of rising housing prices, why do you think that? Is it only because of news stories that the local governments had a hard time finding places to rent out? You don’t base it on data?
    - staticelf 9y ago
      I would gladly base my thoughts on data but unfortunately when it comes to immigration the government doesn't really publish/store any data of any negative effects immigration could have. I base my thoughts on the data that is available (which isn't much) and I still think it's different from the 90s because of the much higher number of people that came to Sweden in the last years. Basically no systems worked as you surely know and the government had to abort the whole situation because it became unreasonable even for them. And to my knowledge, Sweden didn't let immigrants jump queues nor buy apartments for them and their wives in the 90s. For example regarding the lack of data, I am sure they know how many apartments they bought for immigrants but in order for me as a citizen to get that information I would probably have to request it from every single municipality which quickly becomes unreasonable. Just think what you would have to do in order to base the thoughts on data: I would have to request data from every municipality in the country regarding different factors that the immigration could have an effect on. Then I would probably take that data and compile it with other data that is basically impossible to get hold of and then have to compare it with the same data from the 90s. That is of course if every municipality even answers your request (they do not always do that, even if they must) and if they actually keep the records of the data. As with any topic that involves immigration in Sweden, statistics are simply not very often even recorded or stored.

tmikaeld 9y ago

I'm kind of expecting to see a chain reaction happening next.. - Housing falls - Investors sell - Stock drops - SEK value drops (We are here) - Import prices goes up - Goods prices goes up - Less people are wiling to buy goods due to risk - Wages go down - People are let go - Fewer people are willing to buy goods - and so on..

jordanb 9y ago
Your chain breaks at "less people willing to buy goods due to risk". SEK going down will push the costs of imports up. It will also make Swedish exports more competitive. Imports being more costly will cause Swedish consumers to substitute imported goods with local alternatives. The net will be that wages will go up and unemployment will go down. This is good. But the price of goods will become dear to the Swedish consumer and this is bad. And there's a possibility of a wage/price spiral driving up inflation.
- tmikaeld 9y ago
  Good point!

phaemon 9y ago

> Well, if you are increasing the population a lot But you aren't increasing the population "a lot", now are you? You linked to a graph that shows around 350,000 asylum seekers over 5 years. What percentage of Sweden's population is that?

rayiner 9y ago
It's over 3.5% of the total population, which is equivalent to the U.S. adding about a million people. Also note that they're going to be concentrated into relatively few urban areas, instead of being spread out over the entire country.
- hjnilsson 9y ago
  Uhh, would be US adding 10 million, not one million.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- phaemon 9y ago
  So, 3.5% over 5 years, is about 0.7% per year. And that's the main cause of the housing problem in Sweden? I'm very skeptical. > note that they're going to be concentrated into relatively few urban areas Well surely that's a more likely cause, right? Not the actual number, but how they're being distributed.
dijit 9y ago
Bigger than the population of the third largest city in Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%B6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%B6

SiempreViernes 9y ago

In 92 there was a five times jump in asylum applications from the previous year (to 69 000 people), can you guess what inflation adjusted house prices index did at that time, and some time on? It takes great effort to see a correlation between yearly applications (between 2000 and 2008 an average of 25 k persons varying with at most 30%, 7 years below that average and 3 above) and house price index (steadily up 62 % from 2000 to 2007, never failing to increase from one year to another). https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Ekonomi/Hushallens-ekonomi/Bostadspriser/ https://www.ekonomifakta.se/Fakta/Ekonomi/Hushallens-ekonomi... https://www.migrationsverket.se/download/18.585fa5be158ee6bf362fd2/1485556063045/Asyls%C3%B6kande+till+Sverige+2000-2016.pdf https://www.migrationsverket.se/download/18.585fa5be158ee6bf...

wjnc 9y ago
Do you have any data on the supply of housing for the corresponding time periods and perhaps the mix of rental v ownership?

pimmen 9y ago

So, could you explain why the housing prices fell in the 90s when we took in more refugees than ever before? And why they rose considerably when immigration slowed down in the mid 2000s? Because, for some reason you're convinced immigration is the main cause of rising housing prices and that the two clearly correlates, even though you can only back that up with stats that are about a decade old, any older than that and the correlation disappears. Maybe I'm missing something?

staticelf 9y ago
I don't really have any data from the 90s and I wasn't very old back then so I cannot really say anything about it. And stop putting words into my mouth. I wrote that I believe immigration is the main cause of the most extreme increases not the main cause of rising housing prices in general. The difference is that the number of people Sweden has recieved is so much larger 2013-2016 so basically every system we had failed and all municipalities was forced to buy apartments. If you have stable immigration that are predictable it's easy to plan ahead and adjust the society for it but when it comes like 160k people in one year to such a small country as Sweden everything fails. Of course this will have economic effects such as in the housing market.
- pimmen 9y ago
  Fair enough, I’ll stop putting words in your mouth. SiemperVernes supplied stats that showed that the correlation goes from weak to non-existant when you look at the past three decades, despite the fact that the early 90s was record years of immigration. You said the correlation was clear and that you think it’s the main cause of rising housing prices, why do you think that? Is it only because of news stories that the local governments had a hard time finding places to rent out? You don’t base it on data?
  - staticelf 9y ago
    I would gladly base my thoughts on data but unfortunately when it comes to immigration the government doesn't really publish/store any data of any negative effects immigration could have. I base my thoughts on the data that is available (which isn't much) and I still think it's different from the 90s because of the much higher number of people that came to Sweden in the last years. Basically no systems worked as you surely know and the government had to abort the whole situation because it became unreasonable even for them. And to my knowledge, Sweden didn't let immigrants jump queues nor buy apartments for them and their wives in the 90s. For example regarding the lack of data, I am sure they know how many apartments they bought for immigrants but in order for me as a citizen to get that information I would probably have to request it from every single municipality which quickly becomes unreasonable. Just think what you would have to do in order to base the thoughts on data: I would have to request data from every municipality in the country regarding different factors that the immigration could have an effect on. Then I would probably take that data and compile it with other data that is basically impossible to get hold of and then have to compare it with the same data from the 90s. That is of course if every municipality even answers your request (they do not always do that, even if they must) and if they actually keep the records of the data. As with any topic that involves immigration in Sweden, statistics are simply not very often even recorded or stored.