Foreign ownership of Swedish summer houses, land and farms has increased by 36% over the past five years, new statistics from the Swedish land registration authority show.

The Lantmäteriet figures show that almost 80,000 Swedish properties are now owned by foreigners. The Danes are the group of people leading the list, owning 22,000 Swedish properties, followed by the Germans with 18,700, Norwegians 16,100, the USA 4,300 and Britain 3,700.

The greatest increase over the past five years is however accounted for by the Dutch, with an increase of 72% to 2,600 properties.

The list is dominated by summer houses, but also includes detached houses, farm properties and plots of land.

Henrik Roos, a property analyst at Lantmäteriet, reported: “The Dutch, for example, who live in Europe’s most densely populated country, buy here because of the vast expanse of land.”

Roos predicted that foreign ownership will continue to increase with the longer term strength of the Danish and Norwegian currencies cited as explanatory factors - even if the Swedish Krona has rebounded somewhat over the past year, especially against Sterling.

A positive economic outlook and a continued market growth also make Sweden’s commercial investment market attractive for investors in 2011 according to Savills. The firm reports that by the end of Q1 2011 total turnover reached €2.18bn, up from €2.07bn in Q1 2010.

Overall, Sweden’s GDP has grown every quarter since Q1 2010, a trend which continues into 2011 with a positive GDP growth of 5.5% expected this year by forecasters.