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A few years ago there was no global capital at all in the Malmö property market. International players are now a growing problem.
This is the opinion of the Malmö Municipal Finance Council, Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh (S), who on Thursday attended a webinar on the risk of Swedish rental housing falling into the hands of the worst developers.
Leilani Farha and Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh in Malmö in connection with the signing of the The Shift agreement in March 2019.
– It has become increasingly popular live and invest in Malmö. We must consider this interest in a new way, says Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, who believes it is time for Swedish national politicians to take an impression of Denmark’s tougher housing policy.
Just over a year ago, Malmö joined The Shift, an international network of cities and tenants, to actively participate in the debate on housing in which everyone can afford to live.
Thursday’s seminar also included Leilani Farha, who was previously the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing. She is now the global director of The Shift and appeared on Link from Canada.
The discussion surrounded Around the development documented by Malmö filmmaker Fredrik Gertten in the movie “Push,” capital-rich foreign companies transform housing areas so that original tenants can no longer afford to live there.
Such development has counteracted the Danish government with entirely new legislation that Leilani Farha also sees as a model for Sweden.
– I was in Stockholm and I met your housing minister. I felt that in Sweden the problem is denied, that global capital enters and buys housing.
– Denmark has adopted very progressive laws in this area to protect tenants and human rights. That legislation forces foreign companies like American Blackstone to adapt to Danish law, says Leilani Farha.
Blackstone’s business model is to buy entire residential areas, renovate apartments, and sharply increase rents. Tenants who cannot pay the highest rent are forced to move out. This phenomenon is sometimes called the “renovation bill” and has affected several thousand tenants in Sweden, including the Hembla property portfolio in the Stockholm area.
Fredrik Gertten also participated in Thursday’s discussion and pointed to several examples showing that the problems with property purchases, redevelopments and rents that he has documented in Berlin, among other things, may also be underway in a city like Malmö.
He noted that Cyprus-registered real estate company Akelius is about to undertake a very large renovation of the Kronprinsen block, that Norwegian real estate company Heimstaden bought 4515 properties with mainly apartments in the Blackstone Czech Republic and that a British company plans Build 450 apartments on 18 square meters. Malmö central.
– If I had to decide, I would stop this. What is happening is that slums are being built in Malmö, said Fredrik Gertten.
Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh wailed that a city like Malmö lacks “important tools” to steer the property market in the direction that would be desirable. He noted that the new Danish legislation is “in the interest of Sweden to safeguard the interests of tenants”.
On the other hand, he regretted that Sweden is well on the way to some kind of market rent in the inventory of newly built apartments, but awaited the introduction of market rent “with which it is possible to live”.
“It is a diplomatic response,” he said.
Curiously asked a seminary student The Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh issue would have a chance to stop a foreign venture capital firm like Blackstone if it tried to establish itself as a large owner in Malmö.
– There are national laws and restrictions. It is not that easy. We do not own the problem at the local level, responded the municipal municipal council.
