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The authors investigate how prices of condominiums are affected by the size of the tenant-owner associations that they belong to.

The authors use data of sold apartments in the Swedish municipality Malmö 2013–2018 and estimate hedonic price regressions. The authors also perform semi-structured interviews with three senior professionals in real estate companies.

The authors find significantly negative relationships between the prices of condominiums and the size of tenant-owner associations. Also, regression results indicate that associations should be no smaller than 6–10 apartments. The interviews support that associations should not be too small or too big. The lower and upper limit was suggested by the respondents to 40–50 and 80–150 apartments, respectively. In these ranges, economies of scale can be achieved, and residents will not lose the sense of community and responsibility.

The authors do not prove causality. Smaller associations may have relatively exclusive common amenities, about which we lack data. The same relationships may not exist in different market conditions.

The authors are not aware of previous studies with the same research question. The size of tenant-owner associations may affect the price through different channels. First, several of the banks in Sweden do not always grant mortgages for condominiums that belong to small associations. Second, larger associations may have better economies of scale and more efficient property management. Third, homeowners may prefer smaller tenant-owned associations, because they may feel less anonymous and provide more influence on common amenities.

This paper aims to test two hypotheses related to the supposedly negative impact of rent control on residential mobility: the mobility of renters is, first, negatively related to how attractive their residential areas are and, second, relatively high for renters living in properties built after 2005.

This paper estimates logit and multinomial logit regressions and models household moves. The multinomial logit regressions separate between short- and long-distance moves and between moves to rentals and to owned dwellings. This paper uses the “relative income” of the tenants’ residential areas to proxy area attractiveness. This paper estimates regressions for entire Sweden and the three largest “commuting” regions and municipalities, respectively.

The full sample provides support of both hypotheses in all regressions. Hypothesis one gets stronger support for moves to other rentals than moves to owned dwellings but about equally strong support for short- and long-distance moves. Hypothesis one obtains strongest support in Gothenburg municipality while hypothesis two obtains strongest support in the Malmö region. Also, hypothesis two obtains stronger support for short-distance moves than long-distance moves and slightly stronger support for moves to owned dwellings than those to rented dwellings.

This paper does not estimate “how much” rent control affects mobility, and results cannot be used to design specific rent setting policies. Results may be sensitive to how different types of moves are defined.

Efforts to reform rent setting policies in Sweden are encouraged.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper’s two hypotheses are not tested before in Sweden and can be tested without control groups.