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STOCKHOLM, May 31 (Reuters) – Swedish real estate web portal Hemnet reported a 24% jump in quarterly sales in its first earnings report after going public, as more people used its website amid a surge in demand for homes.

Net sales rose to 142.5 million crowns ($17.15 million) from 115.3 million a year earlier.

“We continue to have strong momentum and expect that net sales in the second quarter of 2021 will also show a year-on-year increase that is above the upper end of the group’s financial target range of 15-20%,” CEO Cecilia Beck-Friis said.

Swedish housing prices surged in 2020 and a recent report by Nordea forecast a further 9% growth in 2021.

However, the number of published listings on Hemnet’s website fell to 44,000 in the first quarter from 46,800, largely due to an unusually low volume of houses on the market, the company said.

Founded in 1998, Hemnet was acquired by General Atlantic and Sprints Capital in 2016 for about 2 billion crowns and the company is now Sweden’s largest housing portal.

The company’s shares have nearly doubled in value since listing on Nasdaq Stockholm last month from its offering price of 115 crowns.

$1 = 8.3107 Swedish crowns Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Simon Johnson

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