Essays on Stockholm’s real estate market 1730–2020

This dissertation examines the long-run development of Stockholm’s real estate market between the years 1730 and 2020. Building on the city’s vast archival sources of housing transactions, it presents new insights into the historical price movements and the class and gender composition of the people that were engaged in the housing market. In five articles, three overarching themes are addressed. Firstly, Stockholm’s real estate price development between 1730 and 1875 is reconstructed. The new indices are then linked to existing ones so that prices can be followed into the present. Perhaps the most striking finding is that the last decades of rapidly rising prices had a precursor in the late 1800s market. Secondly, the new indices are used to assess the historical existence of turbulence and bubbles. While several severe price declines are detected, not least in periods of price increases and world wars, the buildup to the financial crisis of 1990 stands out as unique with its explosive price surge. Thirdly, archival material with information about historical real estate transactions is used to examine the class and gender composition of real estate market participants from 1730 to 1875. While the class composition remained stable, women’s participation was transformed as more unmarried women started to invest in housing towards the end of the investigated period. It highlights a tension between formal regulations and the praxis of women living in an increasingly commercialized city. This thesis puts Stockholm’s present real estate price boom in a historical perspective. It discusses earlier periods of booms and busts, and maps resemblances and differences with the present situation. Furthermore, it provides new empirical data that can be useful for future researchers