The HOAs don't let you be a landlord and rent out your apartment for more than 2 years at a time, and you need to have a reason like you are moving to another country for studies.
Technically when you buy an apartment in Sweden you are (almost always) not actually buying the apartment, but rather just a stake in the HOA corporation with the attached right to live in the apartment. So the HOA has last say about who can live in the apartment (and what renovations you can do).
It is all very complicated and specific to Sweden, but this HOA corporation thing avoids a lot of fees/taxes when selling/buying the apartment (which is a BIG deal, stamp tax alone is 4% of the asset last I heard). But you get these downsides as well.
Detached houses usually don't have HOAs, those you can rent out more freely. However they are not exactly affordable housing, especially considering heating costs of detached houses triple during winter (maybe they only double _if_ you have modern heat pumps). Banks won't lend you money to buy real state with the intent to rent out either.
> It is all very complicated and specific to Sweden, but this HOA corporation thing avoids a lot of fees/taxes when selling/buying the apartment (which is a BIG deal, stamp tax alone is 4% of the asset last I heard). But you get these downsides as well.
Yes, routing around regulation and taxes often gets pretty complicated.
Here in Singapore we don't have rent control, but stamp duty can also be really high (especially for foreigners). Fortunately, we don't have capital gains taxes, so if you aren't particularly tied to owner-occupied housing, you can instead invest in the stock market and use the returns to pay rent.
Renting second-hand means renting outside of the rent-controlled system. Either from someone who owns the apartment (or rather a stake in the HOA corporation) or someone who has a first-hand (rent-controlled) contract.
The HOA corporation thing is actually really nice most of the time, the two big downsides is that you can't do major renovations or renting your apartment without asking permission.
The paperwork to buy/sell real estate is really minimal if you buy through a HOA, also makes mortgages paperwork a lot easier. HOAs are regulated by the government so banks only need minimal information to authorize loans for HOA-property. Also the banks won't loan to buy property in mismanaged HOAs (HOAs with too much loans) so you don't need to do a lot of due diligence yourself.
So for real state ownership the government kinda handed over control to HOAs and decided to regulate the HOAs instead of doing it all themselves.
Note that HOA is the equivalent term in english, in Sweden the name is BRF (bostadsrättsförening) which means the same thing.
