"The important thing is that you should not actually believe in the Riksbank this time," I apparently said on TV last time the Riksbank announced the interest rate.
The Governor of the Riksbank then persisted in his assessment that the zero interest rate will remain until after the summer.
2024
It was February 10th.
I really was not alone in my cries.
There were more people who distrusted the Governor's predictions than who believed them.
Two weeks later, something happened that probably no economic analysts had imagined: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
And the Riksbank got so much more wrong than it already had.
The question is how fast
Inflation is now over six percent in Sweden, over seven in Germany and over eight in the United States.
The big question that mortgage borrowers are now asking themselves is, of course, how quickly and how high the interest rate pulls away.
Anyone who still does not think it is a good idea to trust the Riksbank's assessment - 1.8 per cent in the key interest rate in the spring of 2025, which probably means a mortgage interest rate of around 3.5 per cent, but wants to make an independent assessment, has something to bite into : the whole world is turned upside down.
Some points that affect inflation and thus the Riksbank's interest rate decisions:
Covid: It has been two years since the world economy came to a standstill, and shortly afterwards it got off to a flying start with support money.
The result was component shortages and transport chaos.
Many companies still find it difficult to produce enough goods to meet customer demand.
Thus, prices have gone up.
China, or covid part 2: Now China is closing down, again.
Terrible for the inhabitants of the multimillion-dollar cities in particular, but it also exacerbates the global logistics chaos once again.
This means a risk of even more shortages and price increases.
Energy prices: Electricity and fuel began to drive up inflation in Sweden as early as last autumn.
Large EU countries, including Germany, did not get all the gas they needed from Russia, which contributed to shockingly high electricity prices even in southern Sweden.
The war, or energy prices part 2: Russia's invasion of Ukraine made the energy crisis even worse: the West restricts purchases of Russian oil and gas, and at any time it can come to a standstill, either because of more sanctions against Russia, or because Putin himself stops the oil and the gas.
He has already started, with Poland and Bulgaria.
Even higher energy prices, which have also propagated to food, furniture and a lot of other goods.
900 more per million in mortgages
The questions now are: How high and long-lasting will inflation be due to the above?
Will there be wage increases to compensate, and if so, more price increases and more wage increases in a damaging spiral?
The answers determine how much the Riksbank will raise the interest rate to reach the target of two percent inflation.
If you choose to believe in the Riksbank this time, the variable mortgage rate will be 1.5 percentage points higher in two years.
That means SEK 900 a month for the wallet per million in mortgages.
But many assessors believe in as much as 2.5 percentage points, ie SEK 1,500 a month per million.
There is also a risk that the Riksbank will take in so much with interest rate increases that the economy will crash, in the worst case also without succeeding in bringing down inflation, which is partly controlled by war and oil prices.
Then housing prices can also fall, over 30 percent, says the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority when it is in its gloomiest mood.
From there, it is a long way off today: the economy is still booming, and there is still a shortage of housing.
But it has always been true that you should not borrow too much.
And now it's really true.