Sunday, February 27, 2011

Apartment Hunting

We have 1 month until we have to move. When we first arrived in Sweden we began casually looking for our next place to live. In the last month I've been spending more and more time trying to find something and all day today Dale and I inquired about apartments. Apartment hunting in Stockholm is not fun. The Swedish government wants everyone to be able to afford to live in the city and so to make this possible they came up with a queue system and parents put their children in the queue as soon as they are born. It often takes 10 or more years to get an apartment in the city. When people do get the apartment they just turn around and rent it for almost triple the government subsidized rate. It is nearly impossible to find a first or direct contract from the actual apartment owner. Most ads we see are either from the tenant in the apartment or from someone who has sublet from the tenant of the apartment. It's a nightmare. Here is one article on the problem if you care to read more about it: http://www.thelocal.se/24910/20100210/

On top of all that chaos we are checking ads every day, sending our interest within hours of the posting and we are still being put on waiting lists just to show our interest in the apartment. Again, it's a nightmare. Not even to mention the scams that are out there. We responded to one ad only to be told we needed to wire over via Western Union an ungodly high security deposit before we could even see the place. Ummm, no. I don't think so. More nightmares. So, all day today Dale and I have been looking for an apartment in the hopes that in a month we will have a roof over our head. We aren't being picky at this point, any roof will do. And the people we meet all say they had to move several times in the last year just because of this problem. One girl said she has moved 7 times in the past 12 months. I hope that isn't what we have to do or I'll be shipping most of my already reduced wardrobe back to the states! Sigh. Send us some good apartment hunting vibes, we need them! This regulated housing system sure has us missing the free market housing of good old Colorado!
Love Always,
Matilda

1 comments:

Mike said...

Good Luck! What a nightmare though. I can't believe they have such a system. Weird. Sending good vibes and crossing my fingers you too find shelter!

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