The public housing stock is declining in Västerbotten

The public utility is called the homes that are owned by the municipality or its companies. The purpose of these is above all that there should be housing with reasonable rents and standards available in the municipality so that the financial obstacles for people to enter the housing market are not so high.

- The public benefit is needed to ensure that we do not have overcrowded housing, that we do not have a poor standard and that we have the opportunity to give everyone regardless of background the opportunity to enter a housing market even if you do not have previous capital, says Lars Silver, professor at the School of Business. at Umeå University.

Lars Silver believes that there may be risks with too little public benefit, but that it is difficult to say how small is too small.

- It is a trade-off, there is no great answer to exactly what that percentage should be.

Decrease overall in Västerbotten

Despite the fact that in eight of the county's fifteen municipalities the public benefit has increased slightly since 2013, in relation to the rest of the housing market, the net figure for the entire county was minus last year.

The average municipal home ownership in Västerbotten has gone from 22 to 18.5 percent between 2013 and 2019.

If you only look at apartment buildings, ie the form of apartment housing that is most common, municipal ownership has decreased by as much as 5.5 percentage points since 2013.

Who will build the homes?

Lars Silver believes that there is a need for housing construction in both cities such as Umeå and in the inland municipalities, but that there is often no opportunity for the private market to build new in smaller towns and municipal companies then become the only alternative.

- It can be small apartments that are affordable, where can you find them somewhere? Who builds them? If no one else is building, then it is a municipal matter, he says.

Hear Professor Lars Silver tell more in the clip above about the risks involved with too little public benefit and whether it is good to sell municipal housing.