What the new survey says
Boverket's annual bostadsmarknadsenkät is a municipality-by-municipality read on how local officials see housing supply and demand. This year, 287 of Sweden's 290 municipalities answered.
The headline has genuinely improved. In the 2026 survey, 102 municipalities say the local housing market has a shortage in the municipality as a whole. That is 25 fewer than in last year's survey and 46 fewer than two years ago. Boverket also says 55 municipalities now report a surplus, the highest number since 2010.
A national average can still hide the part that matters to a household. Boverket says 57 percent of the population lives in municipalities that report a housing shortage. In 2017, that share was 94 percent, so the direction is better. It is just not the same thing as an easy market everywhere.
Why balance can mislead
Housing is local and weirdly specific. A municipality can have more empty homes and still lack the homes people can actually use: affordable larger rentals, ground-floor homes, senior housing, or accessible homes for older residents.
Boverket's own observation is sharp here. The agency says nearly 200 municipalities mainly see a need for homes with reasonable housing costs, senior homes, and accessible homes. Municipalities also point to household finances, high housing costs, and difficulty getting loans as central barriers.
That is why "balance" is not a green light by itself. It may mean the total number of homes is closer to local demand. It may also mean the wrong homes are available at the wrong price, in the wrong part of the municipality, for the households that need to move.
Central towns still matter
Boverket says central towns remain the place where demand most often presses hardest against supply. The 2026 survey still shows 129 municipalities reporting shortage in the central town, although that is down from 152 last year.
The calmer signal is outside those cores. In municipalities' other areas, 153 municipalities report balance, while 81 report shortage and 52 report surplus. That split is a quiet reminder that moving a few kilometres can change the market, but commuting, school, care, family logistics, and job access decide whether that option is real.
The big-city split
The improved national picture comes mainly from smaller and other larger municipalities outside the hardest big-city pressure. Boverket says many smaller municipalities outside metropolitan regions are moving toward balance or surplus.
The big-city regions and university-town groups look different. Boverket says shortages still dominate in almost all municipalities and municipal subareas in the metropolitan regions, and most of those municipalities expect the shortage to remain in three years.
That matters for rent queues, first-home buyers, separated parents trying to stay near school, students, and older households who want to move without leaving their network. A national improvement does not shorten every queue or make every deposit easier to gather.
Building is not rescuing the map yet
The survey lands next to two fresh SCB numbers that keep the story grounded. SCB says Sweden added 33,332 homes through new construction and conversion in 2025, which was 30 percent fewer than the year before. Small-house completions were the lowest since 1999.
Costs are not giving developers a clean rescue either. SCB's April building-cost index for apartment buildings was 2.4 percent higher than a year earlier, the fastest annual pace since June 2024. Diesel, transport, contractor costs, and several material groups moved in different directions, which makes the construction pipeline less simple than "rates down, homes up."
What to check locally
- Your municipality's label: shortage, balance, and surplus are not interchangeable with the situation in one neighbourhood.
- The central town: the main town can stay tight while the rest of the municipality looks calmer.
- The type of home: family-size rentals, senior homes, accessible homes, and starter homes can each have their own shortage.
- Local building starts and completions: a weaker construction year can matter later, even if the current market feels less hot.
- Cash barriers: loan access, deposits, rents, and monthly housing costs can block a move even where homes exist.
Bottom line
Sweden's housing shortage is easing on the municipality count, but it is becoming more uneven rather than magically solved. The useful read is local: which part of the municipality, which type of home, and which household budget.
If a move, lease, sale, or study plan depends on housing this year, the 2026 map says to look past the national headline. The shortage may have eased somewhere else while your exact market is still doing its old trick.
Source frame: survey scope, 287 responding municipalities, source update date, and methodology context from Boverket's bostadsmarknadsenkät page; 102 shortage municipalities, 57 percent population share, 55 surplus municipalities, central-town and three-year figures, and municipal-group differences from Boverket's national housing-market survey results; the "right homes" caveat, nearly 200-municipality need for affordable, senior, and accessible homes, and household-finance barriers from Boverket's survey observations; 2025 completed-home figures from SCB's 11 May 2026 housing-completion release; April 2026 building-cost figures from SCB's 15 May 2026 building-cost index release. Accessed 18 May 2026. This is educational household-money context, not personalized legal, tax, mortgage, rent, property, construction, or financial advice.