Who stays, who moves? Determinants of post-renovation (im)mobility in the Swedish rental sector

Research on renovation-driven displacement (‘renoviction’) has focused on tenants who move, leaving those who stay in renovated housing largely unexplored. Using Swedish administrative register data on rental properties renovated in 2013, matched to comparable unrenovated properties through propensity score matching, this study examines the determinants of post-renovation (im)mobility. Results show that renovation is not necessarily a trigger for moving. Key findings of this study include housing benefits as a consistent driver of staying, and that tenants in Sweden’s largest cities are significantly more likely to stay than elsewhere. The findings suggest that post-renovation immobility is a nuanced outcome – in some cases, staying reflects an institutional resilience (in the case of housing benefits), while in other cases, it reflects an absence of affordable alternatives. This paper argues that renovations should be evaluated not only by the absence of displacement, but by whether the tenants who stay do so by choice.