• JustinA
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    2 days ago

    Yeah housing can be tricky, especially in Stockholm. There is the Stockholm bostadsförmedlingen, which is good to join if you’re a resident, but queue times are completely unrealistic. 10+ years for the nicer neighborhoods. There are a number of student apartments on there though that might be easier to apply for.

    I highly recommend the apartments in Bergshamra and Lappkärrsberget, I have a lot of friends who live there. I think those apartments are owned by the student union. I’ve also seen student apartments on campus at KTH, but I think those are a special arrangement with the university maybe, not sure how you can get those.

    But yeah, the unfortunate reality in Stockholm is that the easiest way to get an apartment is to put up a down payment to buy a condo in a housing coop (“Bostadsrätt”). You can search for those on the government-owned real-estate site booli.se, but it usually takes 2 months for it to clear even after you buy. A typical down payment in Stockholm is 15% of the apartment/house value, ie $30-60k for a typical $200k-400k apartment.

    In a pinch, you can find a room to rent second-hand (“andrahandshyra”) online, but it can be a hassle and expensive to have a landlord, and it’s sometimes a bit grey-market in the Swedish system when it comes to taxes, rent-control, and BRF rules. Plenty of sites for finding those, one is blocket, and you can find many more by googling “hyra lägenhet”.

    Lycka till!