I just moved to a new apartment in Stockholm about 4 weeks ago! I used to live in Hägersten which is located in southern part of greater Stockholm area. Now I moved to Stockholm central area (still southern part) called Södermalm. It used to be a residential area for working class, but today, it is famous for arty and hippie area of Stockholm. You can feel a lot of young and fashionable vibes when you enter this region.
Today’s blog, I wanted to share a bit about purchasing a new apartment and selling the old apartment!
Sweden recently announced a new regulation which allows apartment owners to set rental prices freely. Until then, the owners required getting approvals from the building association and prices for rentals were strongly regulated. Of course, there are black markets where you can rent apartments for unreasonably expensive prices. Anyway, I believe it also affected the behavior of Stockholm residents and made more logical to purchase one instead of renting one. I have mentioned in my previous blog post that Stockholm is experience a huge shortage in the number of apartments comparing to the number of residents. To be honest, it was much easier to sell apartment than buying a new flat.
Unlike in the USA, there is only one broker who is involved in the selling process. In the US, it is common to have one broker for buyer who negotiates the prices and conditions of apartments with a seller’s broker. When we started the apartment hunting, we just looked into the website called hemnet.se, the largest and most commonly used website for purchasing apartments or houses in Sweden. There, you can choose which location and what prices of an apartment you are looking for. It also indicates the date of apartment visit (usually it takes 2 days: Sunday afternoon and Monday evening). All you need is to visit the apartment during the visiting hours and register your name.
Guess what, it only took one week to decide purchasing a new flat and signing the contract!
It sounds a bit strange for many people, for sure. In Sweden, selling/buying apartments happen so often that it feels like you are passing apartment factory. After you register your name at the flat visit, you will receive calls from the assigned broker within 1-2 days and they will ask you if you want to place a bid for the apartment. For our case, it took 3 days until we found out that our competitors decided not to place any further bid. Some apartments, the bid goes for about a week. The bid process can go crazy and price could sometimes easily jump for several thousand kroner (SEK). Once you know you win the bid, you can sign the contract immediately. In our case, we had to place 10% of the apartment price within 5 working days after signing of the contract. The rest (90%) must be placed before receiving the keys.
For selling part, we hired one broker J so simple. She scheduled the photographer to take photo of the apartment, posted on the hemnet site. Luckily, we had one buyer who was strongly interested in the apartment so we just made the price agreement and immediately signing the contract… which only took 3-4 days after posting our advertisement on the web! How quick! After that, all you need to arrange is a professional cleaning service at the date of your departure and leave the keys to the new owners.
The apartment is still renovating but since I live in the Centrum now, I will have a lot more to share about the city!