In Sweden we have a history of a very strict rent control (which will probably be scrapped for newly built homes, because of current politics) while also handin

In Sweden we have a history of a very strict rent control (which will probably be scrapped for newly built homes, because of current politics) while also handing a lot of power to the local governments to regulate housing. There are a lot of reasons Sweden has absurd real estate prices (the Gothenburg area in Sweden, which is the seat of moderately famous Volvo, has real estate prices close to the Seattle area which is the seat of Boeing, Amazon and Microsoft while the median incomes are not even remotely similar), and why the bulk of the price hike happened during the last decade, but a big one that's often overlooked is that local governments don't want rentals. Because of rent control they are mostly inhabited by low income earners, who pay less tax. Rent control is set by the national government agencies, who of course don't care where you live, they want everyone to have a decent home without being gouged. Not saying that rent control is necessarily a bad thing, but if implemented on a national level they give local governments less tools to get rid of poor people. In the end, they'll find a way, and that might create even more problems.