Today, Wednesday at the end of January 2020, 20,677 stands in the housing agency's queue in Luleå. There are 7 vacant apartments, if you do not belong to the group of students or the elderly in need of security housing.

Built too little

Anyone who does not have special requirements about which housing area they want to move to can get a rental contract within seven to eight years. Luleå has the longest queue of all municipalities in Norrbotten.

- The construction of rental apartments has not kept up with demand. Especially not in Luleå. If the building plans hold, a lot of new apartments will be built on the Crown, among others. It is good that it is being built, but new production is often too expensive for many who want to rent an apartment, says Roger Enbom.

Rental apartments in the municipalities

The news agency Siren, with the help of statistics from Statistics Sweden, made a summary of how many vacant apartments there are in public utility in

respective municipality in Norrbotten. The figures are for September 2019 and the graphics can be seen below.

Public housing vacant apartments in the various municipalities of Norrbotten. Photo: SVT News graphics

Sale of public utility

Roger Enbom is very concerned that the public utility is selling its properties to private property owners.

- Luleåbo is an example of this. When private property owners take over, they renovate the apartments to be able to raise rents and this leads to increased housing segregation. The cheaper rents will disappear forever.

Who is the most difficult on the housing market?

- Generally, it is solitary with children and elderly. They depend on housing allowance and housing allowance to meet the rent.