Your first link doesn't show me stockholm center houses between €250.000 and €300.000. And yes, you can probably buy an appartment for that price or even a small house, but comparing it to your mothers out in the middle of nowhere with 5 acres of land is obviously silly.
The Funda link shows houses in Amsterdam up to €125.000. If you can't afford more then €125.000 then you shouldn't buy a house but save more.
And our banks don't look that strickt at all. The mortgage on my house is almost 5x my grosse yearly income while the government advices it to be below/around 4. I bought my new house last December when they were already strickt.
And you would take a loan above 100% to invest in your house, seeing as we still get a return on our intrest here. And when the housing market goes up, you make a profit on it. Hense, the government would have paid in part your investment.
Unfortunately stupid people thought it was a good idea (thought the prices would never go down) and en masse did it, creating a housing price bubble which is why you now probably find that the rules for a mortgage are more difficult then in the past.
Anyways, if you have/had saved then now is a good time to buy since the prices are back to 2004 level. If you wait a bit longer you might profit more even but it is not going to last for another 5 years or so.
---------- Post added 2013-02-01 at 01:06 PM ----------
Actually our queen also sits in meetings when going to a foreign country and actually discusses along when the big companies meet. Like in Singapore and Brunei a few weeks back. Obviously "ribbon cutting" plays a role but she is also there when the actual big deals are being made.