The negotiations on the rents have begun. This year, tenants and landlords are unusually far apart. The property owners want to raise the rents by 15 percent, but the tenants flatly say no.
In one ring corner: The Tenant’s Association.
In the second: The property owners who represent large landlords.
The property owners’ first offer is a 15 percent increase for next year. That would mean that a rent of SEK 10,000 a month would go up to SEK 11,500.
“It is a demand that we absolutely cannot agree to. We have already received large increases for several years”, says Marie Linder, president of the Tenants’ Association.
She lives in Tyresö outside Stockholm and says that she has neighbors who will have to think about moving if the proposal goes through.
Tenants are affected more
She points out that renters sometimes have small incomes and have to contend with inflation on everything, including high food prices.
At the same time, housing is becoming cheaper for everyone with a tenant right now that interest rates on mortgages are going down.
“This creates an imbalance in society”, says Marie Linder.
Need to renovate
Marie Linder thinks it is strange if the rents should go up when one of the property owners big costs, interest on their loans, goes down. But Tomas Ernhagen, chief economist, says that the companies’ costs have been rising for a long time and that they have not received full compensation.
“We run a business and our income comes from rents. Money that we use for investments in housing, renovations, maintenance and much more”, he says.
The above statements however should not be put on the tenants, it’s not their fault. And the property owners are already a multi billion profit business. Which just makes it even harder to understand why rents are increasing by 15%.
