The average wait time for a rent-controlled apartment in Stockholm has risen from five years to nine years in the last decade and even double this in the more desirable locations. The proportion of Swedish people ages 20–27 living with their parents has been rising and is currently the highest since records began.

Price controls have always and everywhere produced the following results:

• A price ceiling (set below the rate the market would establish) will produce a shortage of said good/service and/or a drop in the quality in said good/service provided. Case in point: rent controls (Stockholm, Hanoi, New York, Dublin).

• A price floor (set above the rate the market would establish) will produce an oversupply of said good/service said good/service. Case in point: the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the progenitor of fabled butter mountains, wine lakes, and milk lakes. Many readers will be familiar with similar gluts that have necessarily flowed from their own jurisdictions’ price setting.

• Where rent price ceilings are set below market-clearing rates, landlords tend to leave the market, never enter the market in the first place, or adjust other costs (such as maintenance and repairs) downward so as to reduce losses or maintain their margins. Landlords selling up or not purchasing in the first place can only reduce the supply of rental properties. Putting off maintenance and repairs reduces the quality of the housing stock that is available to rent.