Last week I was visiting my daughter in London. And a mother and a daughter in London means shopping!

To my surprise, I didn´t feel or see as many signs of the financial crises as I had expected. The shops were open, there were no sales and people acted like everything was “normal”.

But when I read the papers I got a different picture. The transaction volume in UK has gone down with over 50%. The house prices on the residential market has gone down dramatically and most analyst say that the market has reached bottom.

So, how does UK influence and compare with Sweden?

The Swedish commercial real estate transaction volume in Q1 2007 was 24 561 MSEK, in Q1 2008 it was 18 880 MSEK and in Q1 2009 it was down to 4 495 MSEK. The trend doesn´t look very positive and personally I do not think that we have reached the bottom yet.

The prices in the private market has not gone down so much, mostly influenced of the very low interests rates. I am a former broker on the residential market, and have not lost interest in it, so last Sunday I went to a couple of showings. It turned out that a three bedroom apartment in central Stockholm still costs about 48 000 kronor per square meter – and that’s before the bidding has started! But it remains to be seen what the closing price will be. My conclusion is that this market seems unaffected by the global crises.

Petra Wester - Head of Customer Relations