Real-estate agents “carefully optimistic” despite uncertainty about employment and household economy.

The value of sold tenant-owned flats fell dramatically last year due to the financial downturn, new figures from Statistics Sweden shows. There were roughly 88 000 tenant-owned flats sold at a total worth of 94 billion kronor (€9 billion), which is a decrease of 17 billion kronor or 15 percent compared to the record year of 2007.

The largest decrease was on Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea with about 58,000 inhabitants, where the sales had gone down by 34 percent.

The average prizes fell by 4 percent to a bit less than 1.1 million kronor.

Despite enduring economic uncertainty, a growing number of real-estate agents are starting to see the light on the other side of the tunnel. The Swedish central bank, Riksbanken, recently halved its key rate to 0.5 percent in a move to stimulate the economy.

“The last few month the housing market has been categorized by a careful optimism”, Peeter Pütsep, CEO at the agency Svensk Fastighetsförmedling, said. “There’s an unmet need of exchanging living accommodations as a lot of people have awaited exchange of flats since the autumn”.

It’s to early to expect rising prizes, the agent says. The economic crisis will hit differently in different parts of the country, leading to large price differentials.

The regional price differences are traditionally large in Sweden. In Stockholm, the average price was 1.9 million kronor last year, figures from the statistics office show. Inte cheapest flats were found in the county of Västernorrland, in the northern parts of the country, where the typical price was 261,000 kronor.

Total sales of tenant-owned flats 2000-2008 in SEK billions.