Maybe just save Stockholm for a weekend on your next Eurotrip. Why? Well, there’s no place to live. Most of Sweden’s population is cramped in and around Stockholm and for one travel blogger, Nomadic Matt, it meant having to scrap his plans to live in Stockholm:
Why is it this way? No idea. Even the Swedes complain about it and they seem to be at a loss to try to explain the system to me. “It’s just the way it is,” they say. The right-leaning, more market-based party doesn’t want to change the laws any time soon either. Add the fact that Stockholm doesn’t build new places to meet demand and you have a recipe for a city with no housing. Sure, this keeps the city old and historic but it’s a pain the ass. I don’t understand why they don’t throw up some high rises on the outskirts of town where people might not notice so much.
This housing crunch leads to a huge secondary market where the owner rents their place out to others at a much higher price. Sometimes the renter then turns around and rents it to someone else for even more money!