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Large parts of northern Sweden have seen a fast increase in many new job opportunities. Skellefteå municipality is the most prominent example of this. The company Northvolt established a factory there in 2017 which has led to a fast increase in population. This has largely been seen as positive, however it has also caused many problems for the municipality. The most pressing problem is housing. It has been hard to build new housing at a fast enough pace to match the increasing population, this has led to a housing shortage in Skellefteå. 

The aim of this essay is to examine the possibilities of converting and using second homes as permanent housing in Skellefteå Municipality. Deserted houses will also be included to a lesser extent. This will be done by analyzing previous research and reports and by taking second homes from broker websites and analyzing the price and other factors in ArcGIS Pro as well as the potential costs of renovation.

The results show that five types of second homes could be converted into permanent housing at a somewhat reasonable price. While many second homes are cheaper than apartments, they are still quite expensive if the costs of renovations are included. It is unclear if using second homes as permanent housing could have a large impact on the housing shortage in Skellefteå, and more research is needed to say anything for certain. Deserted houses could be converted to permanent housing, but it is unclear if there is an interest in doing so, since it could be very expensive and tedious to renovate these houses.