Renovations as an investment strategy: circumscribing the right to housing in Sweden

Abstract

There is an emergent field of writings on financialized landlords' undertaking of apartment renovations as an investment strategy and its effect on housing inequalities. Seldom do these studies contextualize these tendencies within countries' specific housing policy traditions. Therefore, through a qualitative case study in a neighbourhood in Sweden, this paper aims to uncover how private landlords undertake renovations as an investment strategy and its effect on tenants and, in turn, on the hybrid character of a universal housing system. It finds that renovations enable landlords to extract value from the built environment while tenants experience rising rents, a lack of information, poor property maintenance, and apprehension. Hence, I argue that renovations represent an investment strategy that serves to undermine the traditional social right to housing within a universal housing policy context. The paper thus furthers knowledge on how the situatedness of financialization tendencies entails their translation through and transformation of housing systems. 'gentrification-by-upgrading strategy' implemented by financialized landlords in Toronto, Canada. The present paper focuses on a smaller neighbourhood to uncover how renovations are carried out and how they affect tenants. Additionally, the paper understands such investment strategies as indicative of how financialization processes

Legal Geographies of Displacement through Renovation: Legal Interpretative Practices in Sweden

“…The financialisation of housing in Sweden, and the role of rental housing in this process, has been illuminated by several scholars (Grander 2017; Gustafsson 2021, 2022; Westerdahl 2021). Turning rental housing, comprising less than 30% of the housing stock (SCB 2019), into financial assets has, in the Swedish context, often followed the trajectory of disinvestment and lack of maintenance followed by upgrading and renovation (Gustafsson 2021; Pull and Richard 2019; Rannila 2021), which in the international literature is often referred to as “financialised gentrification” (Crosby 2020; Risager 2021) or a “gentrification–touristification–financialisation nexus” (Aalbers 2020). A large part of Swedish housing stock is currently 50 years or older (SCB 2017).…”

“…Regarding the responsibility for the technical condition of the property, the argument that property owners have neglected maintenance of their property in the past, as brought forward by tenants and pointed out in research on rental renovations in Sweden (Gustafsson 2021; Pull and Richard 2019; Rannila 2021; Westerdahl 2021), did not gain any weight in the legal practice of the Tribunal. The Tribunal did not include this temporal aspect of accumulated maintenance debt in the claim of responsibility in the renovation issue.…”

“…The Swedish housing regime, once viewed as universal and egalitarian, has undergone a dramatic transformation since the 1990s (Grundstr€ om and Molina 2016;Hedin et al 2012). To understand the causes of housing problems, researchers have pointed to "policy-driven emergence of significant inequalities" (Christophers 2021:573) and liberalisation of the housing sector (Baeten et al 2017:639), along with "market-governed housing provision" (Hedin et al 2012:443) and the financialisation of housing, where state-local relations have been restructured (Gustafsson 2022), and where public housing has played a central role (Grander 2017;Gustafsson 2021Gustafsson , 2022Westerdahl 2021). What has not been explored in detail is how the financialised context of housing and gentrification-as a hegemonic project (Paton 2014)-is reproduced and enabled through law.…”

“…2017:639), along with “market‐governed housing provision” (Hedin et al. 2012:443) and the financialisation of housing, where state–local relations have been restructured (Gustafsson 2022), and where public housing has played a central role (Grander 2017; Gustafsson 2021, 2022; Westerdahl 2021). What has not been explored in detail is how the financialised context of housing and gentrification—as a hegemonic project (Paton 2014)—is reproduced and enabled through law.…”

From state support to market and financialization measures in crisis times: A comparative literature review of the Swedish and German housing systems

“…Several scholars have shown how the investment strategies have resulted in displacement of previous tenants through poor maintenance and rising rents through renovations of empty apartments (e.g. Baeten et al, 2017;Christophers, 2021;Gustafsson, 2021). The most affected areas are primarily already socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.…”