2025.05.23
Housing completions down 30 percent in Sweden in 2024
Statistics Sweden's statistics on the completion of new housing in 2024 were recently released. The total addition of housing through new construction and renovation for 2024 amounted to 48,024 apartments according to Statistics Sweden measurements, which is a full 30 percent fewer than the year before.
Single-family home production hardest hit
The construction and completion of single-family homes is the housing sector that is declining the most - a decline of as much as 46 percent compared to 2023. In total, Statistics Sweden counted 6,624 apartments completed in single-family homes during the past year.
The industry organization TMF (Wood and Furniture Companies) is seeing a similar decline among its members when it comes to deliveries of wooden houses – both prefabricated and group-built.
The expected recovery in the construction industry is delayed and both order intake and deliveries remain at low levels.
– Our figures clearly show that our industries are still in a really tough period, says TMF's CEO Erik Haara. The reduced sales figures seen for companies in building interior design also point to the great need for political reforms to stimulate and kick-start housing construction. Here, the entire value chain must get some air under its wings from houses to interior design. If no houses are built, there will be no window orders (and no white goods orders either... editor's note) and the moving chains that lead to consumption will also come to a standstill, says TMF's CEO Erik Haara.
Apartment buildings down 26 percent
In 2024, 39,240 residential apartments were completed in newly built apartment buildings in the country. This is 26 percent fewer than the previous year.
It is interesting to see the figures in a historical perspective, where today's new production in apartment buildings does not by any means reach the production levels during the days of the million program in the 1960s, but well matches the levels during the construction boom of 1989-1991.
Completed apartments through new construction 1938 – 2024 and renovation 1989 – 2024
In addition to this, renovations also provided an addition of 2,160 apartments. The total addition of housing through new construction and renovation in 2024 thus amounts to 48,024 apartments, which is approximately 30 percent fewer than in 2023.
Most new apartments per inhabitant in Uppsala County
The highest number of newly built apartments per inhabitant is in Uppsala County, where 10.3 apartments were completed per thousand inhabitants. In Jämtland County, 1.0 apartments were completed per thousand inhabitants, which was the lowest in the country. The corresponding figure for the entire country is 4.3 newly built apartments per thousand inhabitants.
Sweden now on par with other Nordic countries
Sweden – the Nordic country with the highest population – has had a numerically higher number of housing starts than its neighboring countries in all years.
But now we can note that 2024 has meant that we are now at the same levels as the rest of the Nordic region, especially when it comes to starting new housing production. Shouldn't we be better than that?
