Identifying market mobility barriers for wooden single-family house producers to enter the multifamily segment

In the past decades, the housing shortage in Sweden accumulated to a level that led to acute problems for many people combined with continuously rising housing prices. The market for single-family houses, where wood dominates with 85 – 90 % of market share, is highly competitive with many companies offering relatively similar products or services. To serve the demand on that market, only 38 % of the existing companies were needed. One way to tackle the existing housing shortage, and to develop new business opportunities, could be to get more companies from the single-family house industry to produce multi-family houses. Current competence in prefabricated house production could be utilised, yet, other areas could act as barriers for these companies. The aim of this study is to identify potential market mobility barriers for Swedish companies currently producing wooden single-family houses to develop towards the construction of multi-family houses. This will be conducted by initial interviews with decision makers in those companies, combined with a survey-study covering companies within the industry. The results show that the main market mobility barriers are related to the strong market presence of traditional building materials, lack of knowledge by the market of wood as a suitable building material and the importance of governmental guidance and actions.Ej belagd 180903