Sweden real estate investing

[Seth Mosley]

Hey all! Wanting to get some feedback from any investors with experience investing in Sweden. My wife is from Sweden and I want to purchase some offshore assets, and wondering if Sweden might be the place to do it? Anyone have any wisdom on this? Looking for info on govt rent controls, price to rent ratios, and financing tips. Thanks! -Seth

[Morgan Nilsen]

Hey Seth,

I can help you a little bit regarding sweden, and or Norway, if you want me to. Sweden has a few things going for it, but as a Norwegian investor, I found that the market was not for me.

Here are some pros and cons:

+Real Estate prices are very low outside of the cities. 

+Sweden take in 100.000 new imigrants every year, and they all need housing. Because of this the house prices is going up significantly in the bigger cities.

-Because sweden is taking in so many imigrants without having the propper financial ability to do so, many economy experts predict a collapse in swedens economy.

- Swedish tenants dont have a good culture for caring about units they rent.

+ Most swedish people actually rent their housing. Aproximately 70% of the population rents.

- The swedish real estate market do NOT reward renovations, in terms of value adding, so buying something old and renovating it is a bad idea.

I chose to not invest in sweden, even tho their house prices are much lower than in Norway for the reasons above. A very unstable economy, bad tenant culture, and no ability to force higher rents or value. 

I found the property market in Norway to be more appealing, and especially now the Dollar to NOK is so strongly in favor of the Dollar. Used to be about 6kr for a dollar, but now its 8kr because of the low oilprices.

Happy to discuss the matter with you further in private. Just drop me a message if you want to talk :)

-M