Statistics Sweden (SCB), the National Statistical Institute of Sweden

Section for Consumer Prices

Postal address:

Statistics Sweden
Solna strandväg 86,
171 54 Solna
SWEDEN

The OOHPI is based on the ‘net acquisitions’ approach, which measures changes in prices paid by households for the acquisition of dwellings that are new to the household sector and changes in other costs related to the ownership, and transfer of ownership, of dwellings.

The OOHPI is broken down into the following expenditure categories:

• O.1. Owner-occupiers’ housing expenditure;
  • O.1.1. Acquisitions of dwellings;
    • O.1.1.1. New dwellings;
      • O.1.1.1.1. Purchases of newly built dwellings;
      • O.1.1.1.2. Self-build dwellings and major renovations;
    • O.1.1.2. Existing dwellings new to households;
    • O.1.1.3. Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings;
  • O.1.2. Ownership of dwellings;
    • O.1.2.1. Major repairs and maintenance;
    • O.1.2.2. Insurance connected with dwellings;
    • O.1.2.3. Other services related to ownership of dwellings.

Households which are owner occupiers.

The main statistical variables are price indices.

The basic unit of statistical observation are transaction prices of dwellings new to the household sector and of other products that the households acquire in their role as owner-occupiers.

The target population comprises:

• The set of all transactions of dwellings new to the household sector and those that are purchased for own use by private households (Purchases of new dwellings)
• Other owner-occupiers' housing expenditure. Examples of such other costs are costs related to the transfer of ownership and costs related to the ownership.

Data are available for the country as a whole.

Data are available since the first quarter of 2005 for all index series.

2015=100

The following units are used:

- Index point;
- Percentage change on the same period of the previous year (rates);
- Percentage change on the previous period (rates);
- Percentage share of the total (weights).

OOHPI is a quarterly statistics.

The basic act providing for the compilation of the House price index (HPI) and the Owner-occupied price index (OOHPI) is the European Parliament and Council Regulation (EU) 2016/792, of 11 May 2016.

The relevant implementing act is Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1470 of 17 July 2023.

There are no national legal acts that applies to OOHPI directly, but for several indices upon which OOHPI is based. Such indices are in many cases considered as "Official Statistics", which is regulated by the Official Statistics Act (SFS 2001:99). The national legislation does not make reference to the EU regulation.

None.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities. The Swedish law “Offentlighets- och sekretessförordning (2009:641)” also restricts the usage of data from statistical producing authorities.

The published figures should not reveal any individual data. If the business situation is such that a published index reveals the data source, the index is not published.

None.

None.

None.

Quarterly (OOHPI) and annually (weights)

None.

The OOHPI is not available in any national publications.

The Swedish OOHPI is only available on Eurostat's web page:
Database - Housing price statistics - Eurostat (europa.eu)

Yes, microdata can be accessed anonymised after a confidentiality assessment, provided that Statistics Sweden considers that the user have the grounds to process the data.

No other formats.

Technical manual on Owner-occupied housing and House price index (2017)

The methodology for compilation of the main components within O.1.1.1 New Dwellings (incl major renovations and self-builders) is available here:

• Building Price Index  (in Swedish).
  
  
• Construction Cost Index  (Swedish)

No further documentation produced.

All data are checked for completeness and consistency with OOHPI statistical concepts and definitions.

Furthermore, the Swedish OOHPI is mainly based on sub-indices that have been published for other purposes and quality assured at an earlier stage. For example, quality declarations are available (in Swedish) for the indices that are used for the component acquisition of new dwellings:

• Building price index: Byggnadsprisindex (BPI) (scb.se) 
• Building cost index: Byggkostnadsindex (BKI) (scb.se)

The quality assurance work is based on the European Statistics Code of Practice.

The quality of the OOHI index is routinely reviewed using a framework that is based on the OOH Manual and the European Statistical System (ESS) definition of quality. We have no quality assessment report for the Swedish OOHPI.

The OOHI responds, on the one hand, to the needs of all individual users interested in the behaviour of the domestic house price market and, on the other, to the needs of the European Central Bank and Commission for a set of indicators monitoring the stability of the house price market.

No user satisfaction surveys have been carried out for the Swedish OOHPI.

To the best of our knowledge, the Swedish OOHPI meets the content requirements in the relevant legislations.

The OOHI is generally considered to be accurate and to reflect the overall behaviour of the housing market in a good way.

No review of the different error sources for the all-items OOHPI has been carried out. 

No estimation of the overall sampling error has been carried out for the Swedish OOHPI.

The most important component within O.1.1 ACQUISITIONS OF DWELLINGS, i.e. the Building price index, covers the entire population. This means it does not contribute to the overall sample error.

No review of the different non-sampling error sources for the all-items OOHPI has been carried out.

However, the number of newly produced OOH dwellings is relatively small, and therefore the index for purchases of new dwellings is affected by noise. The response rate is fairly good.

The Swedish OOHPI is not published nationally.

Data are sent to Eurostat according to the OOH/HPI Regulation data transmission guidelines for quarterly indices: 85 days after the end of the reference period (indices) and the weights for the quarterly indices shall be provided no later than 15 June of the year following the year to which the weights relate. There is no record of delays in the transmission and dissemination of the data.

The Swedish OOHPI is only produced for the national level and has no further regional breakdown.

Data are assessed to be comparable over the entire time series.

Construction price statistics provide index numbers that partly overlap the scope of self-builders and major renovations indexes. The index of purchases of newly built dwellings represents also self-builders major renovation indexes.

The HPI and OOHPI are consistent in the sense that they use the same methodology and data sources where the coverage overlaps (purchases of newly built dwellings).

All figures are checked for internal consistency.
Checks for consistency in calculation is carried out during the quarterly index production.

The costs as hours worked at Statistics Sweden are unknown for the compilation of the OOHPI. The additional respondent burden from producing OOHPI is nonexistent due to using components that are part of other published statistics.

The OOHPI series are revisable under the terms set in Commission implementing regulation (EU) 2023/1470 of 17 July 2023. The OOHPI data may be revised for mistakes, new or improved information, and changes in the system of harmonised rules

The general public is informed about possible non-periodic revisions in the press releases.

Main reasons for unplanned revisions have been revisions in National Accounts and misstakes in the calculation files for OOHPI.

See below.

Questionnaire surveys are the main source for price data.

Notable exceptions are broker's fees (transaction data) within O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings, and O.1.2.1 Major Repairs and Maintenance (web scraping and transaction data).

Weights are mainly based on National Accounts data. Weights for each year are derived from previous years’ National Accounts figures.

The frequency for data collection varies.

For Acquisition of new dwellings varies (one- and two dwelling houses as well as multidwelling houses) one component is collected quarterly and one component on a monthly basis.

Data for other subindices are collected on a monthly basis.

Administrative and survey data are collected either from internet or by e-mail questionnaires.

Data are checked for internal consistency.

 See below.

See below.

OOHPI is a Laspeyres-type price index.

For Newly built one and two-dwelling buildings (elementary index within "O.1.1.1 New Dwellings (incl major renovations and self-builders)", the Building Price Index is nowcasted with the Construction Cost Index for buildings. The resulting index is re-referenced to Q4 y-1 = 100.

A few other important indices at the lowest level are retrieved from other statistical products such as the CPI. These indices are re-referenced to quarterly indices with the common index reference period Q4 y-1 =100.

Each of the elementary indices within "O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings" are calculated by the OOHPI team, but each fee type is represented by a separate index (thus no need for elementary aggregation). These indices are also calculated as Q4 y-1=100.

Each elementary index is aggregated arithmetically to higher-level indices using expenditure weights that are price updated to Q4 y-1 =100.

Weight figures are annually revised (on the basis of the most recently available National Accounts data) and price updated to the last quarter of year t-1. In the weighting scheme a moving average of the last previous three years is applied to the index Purchases of New Dwellings.

The weight data that we use refer to t-2 and under normal circumstances we assume that these weights can approximately be representative also for t-1. In exceptional situations when this is unlikely to hold we will investigate alternatives, such as using preliminary data for y-1 from national accounts (in consultation with Eurostat).

The elementary aggregate weights are adjusted with the corresponding price change between the year t-2 and the fourth quarter of the year t-1.

The 5 quarters (Q4 to Q4) higher-level indices are chain linked to arrive at the final series 2015=100. Q4 is thus the overlap or link quarter in which the new and old basket are priced.

See below.

Tender price.

Purchase of newly built dwellings is exempted from VAT, so we do not include it.

Governmental fees such as Land transaction duty are included in O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings (but not in O.1.1.1.1. Purchases of newly built dwellings).

The price variable is net of product subsidies, i.e. changes in subsidies will affect the index.

Land is excluded from both prices and weights (for prices we do this by using Construction Cost Index).

Housing cooperative dwellings are included and constitute a sizable part of dwellings in Sweden. The price change is reflected in the building price index for multi-dwelling buildings and weights are reflected by the national accounts.

Non-market transactions for new dwellings are excluded from the index compilation.

The exclusion can be made using variables in the sampling frames.

Transactions for objects with multiple properties of dwelling-character are included. 

If at least one of the properties is a non-dwelling property (for example office property), we exclude this.

Fractional transactions (when only a share of a dwelling ownership is sold) are excluded. Such dwellings exist in for example Swedish ski-resorts.

See below.

Jevons index (if unweighted), geometric Young (if weighted).

For "forced" replacements due to missing prices, please see 18.5.3.4 Missing prices.

Products are also replaced to a considerably degree once a year in connection with the annual resampling (done using ΠPS sampling).

Quality adjustment in sub-indices other than Purchases of newly built dwellings and existing dwellings new to households

For the broker's fee within O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings, we use direct comparison within homogenous groups. Other parts of O.1.1.3 consist of a number of government administrated fees (quality adjustment is then rarely applicable).

For O.1.2.1 Major Repairs and Maintenance, we use direct comparison and supported judgmental quality adjustment (depending on the product type).

For O.1.2.2 Insurance, we use supported judgmental quality adjustment. We get input from the insurance companies and make the adjustment with the information at hand.

Missing prices in sub-indices other than Purchases of newly built dwellings and existing dwellings new to households:

What are the main reasons for failing to collect some prices?

If the observation is temporarily missing in the outlet, the outlet may still have a price list with the daily price. If the product has been available in the same week or will be available in the same week, the price collector is instructed to collect the list price instead, otherwise not.
If the previous product offering is no longer sold in the store, the price collector is instructed to choose another well-selling product offering within the given specification.
If there is no product offering that matches the specification, the price change for that observation is imputed with the price change for other observations within the same elementary aggregate.

Explain your imputation methods.

Locally collected observations:

If the observation is temporarily missing in the outlet, the outlet may still have a price list with the daily price. If the product has been available in the same week or will be available in the same week, the price collector is instructed to collect the list price instead, otherwise not.
If the previous product offering is no longer sold in the store, the price collector is instructed to choose another well-selling product offering within the given specification.
If there is no product offering that matches the specification, the price change for that observation is imputed with the price change for other observations within the same elementary aggregate.
Applies to: Most of O.1.2.1 Major Repairs and Maintenance (sub-indices from CPI)

Centrally collected observations:

Generally, a temporarily missing price is imputed with the price change of all other product offers within the same elementary aggregate. Carry forward is generally avoided, but in rare cases it can be used (if there are good reasons to believe that the price is unchanged). If the previous product offering is no longer sold, a representative replacement within the specification is chosen. If no replacement can be found, the observation is left out from the sample for the rest of the survey year. Applies to: O.1.2.2 Insurance, Parts of O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings

Scanner data:

For parts of O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisition of dwellings, we use the brokers fee index from CPI, which is based fully on transaction data. Missing deliveries are rare, but if occuring, imputation may be done by using the price development of other brokers.

For the broker's fees within O.1.1.3 Other services related to the acquisitions of dwellings, we have transaction data and are fully capturing any discounts and inducements.

For building material O.1.2.1 Major Repairs and Maintenance we use a combination of web scraping (the overwhelming part of sampled products), transaction data and traditional price collection. We capture general discounts and inducements, but may miss discounts that are given only to customers with loyalty cards.

For O.1.2.2 Insurance, we use traditional price collection and capture discounts and inducements that can be linked to the individual product. Discounts that are only given when the consumer purhases a whole package of insurances from the same company are excluded.

We have had no such case thus far where a product related to the acquisition or the ownership of dwellings was made available free of charge and a price was subsequently charged.

We have had no such cases thus far where a product was made available for a price and was subsequently made available for free.

Where existing, VAT is included in the observed prices.

No other adjustments carried out.

None.