Long before Europe faced its debt crisis, Sweden struggled through its own 1990s property crash. Sweden first embraced property in the mid-1980s, when the country scrapped strict limits on lending, triggering a free for all that led to a housing collapse and the rescue of two banks, tipping the 10-million-strong country into recession. "The market is almost at a standstill," said Jens Henriksson, chief executive of one of the country's biggest banks, Swedbank.