I vanliga fall brukar finansiell turbulens leda till ökade investeringar i amerikanska statspapper: den stabila dollarn har i snart hundra års tid varit urtypen för en trygg investering. Den senaste utvecklingen antyder dock att dollardominansens dagar kan vara räknade.

This chapter presents new, nominal and real price indices for real estate in Stockholm from 1726 up to 1875. The new series presented here can be linked to already existing price indices for real estate in Stockholm: from 1875 up to 1957; from 1957 to1975 3 and; from 1975 up to 2020.

For this, a new database is used that covers registered real estate transactions in the present inner city of Stockholm for the period and the method of repeated sales is applied. The indices are based on information from 22,169 unique transactions. To control for qualitative changes inthe housing stock, a database of 7,915 issued building permits has been used.

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.

This chapter presents an overview of the development of Stockholm’s real estate prices from 1420 to 2021. It summarises the results from the three studies in thepresent volume, which present new price indices for the periods 1420 to 1630, 1630to 1730, and 1730 to 1875. Furthermore, it links together all these indices with already existing ones that cover the periods 1875 to 1957, 1957 to 1975, and 1975 to 2021, respectively. In addition, we have also gathered a few sporadic sources onsales back to 1283, only a few decades after the founding of Stockholm, which can give a very rough idea of the price level before and after the Black Death. Together, they form some of the longest existing real estate price indices in the world.

With this study, we can assess for the first time the trajectory of house prices in Stockholm over almost the full history of the city. This will not only give us insights into Stockholm ́s economic history but will also be an important source for researchers seeking to include historical real estate prices as a variable in any futurestudies.

Earlier research describes the development of real housing prices as a ‘hockey stick’, i.e. of long stagnation followed by a sharp upturn in recent decades. A problem is that there are very few indices of residential property covering longer periods. Using a database of around 10,900 sales, this study presents a historical housing price index for Stockholm 1818–1875, which extend a previous index by 57 years, one of the longest for any city. A so-called repeated sales index is compared to a sales price appraisals ratio index. We show that in real terms there have been two long upswings, in 1855–1887 and 1993–2018. In other periods, real prices were stagnant or even slightly declining. The nineteenth century upturn did not end in a crash, but was followed by stagnation for a century. There are many similarities between the two upturns. For example, both coincided with the demographic expansion and were preceded by deregulations. During both periods, properties became more expensive relative income levels. 

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