Renting an Apartment in Stockholm

The most important question for anyone who is new to Sweden in general and Stockholm in particular is how to find an apartment to rent?

(By the time I ended up writing this post, it became too long to read if all you wanted was plain facts. So, if you just want to know what the options are very briefly without time for my experience with each option, read this post instead. Otherwise continue reading below.)

Buying or renting?
Digging deeper into this throws up the more important question of whether to buy an apartment or just rent one and the answer is not that simple. I have spoken to my colleagues, friends and other people here and what they are unanimous in their agreement with the fact that buying an apartment is easier and far cheaper than renting one. This is not to say that apartments are cheap  in Stockholm, in fact it is quite the opposite. The demand for apartments in Stockholm is many time greater than the supply since the Swedish authorities are painfully slow at building housing, so the prices of apartments are through the roof and it makes Stockholm as one of the most expensive cities in the world for buying apartments. And, due to rent control in first-hand contracts, the second-hand rental market as become criminally insane. An apartment that is supposed to cost, say, 4,000 kr/month in first-hand rent ends up costing as much as 10,000 kr/month. And again, this is due to the insane demand and supply mismatch for housing in Stockholm.

But, because of the same reason, buying an apartment becomes far cheaper in the long-term because the ease of getting housing loans from the banks means that you virtually end up paying the same amount in your monthly installments to the bank for buying an apartment as you would pay for second-hand rent. So, comparing the two options, at the end of 1 year, you would either have paid the rent and lost that money forever, or invested the same in a new home and that money is not lost because it is getting you an apartment permanently. Whether or not the real estate prices appreciate, you still get most – if not more – of your money back in case you decide to sell.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say any more about buying vs. renting because I haven’t decided to buy just yet so let us come back to renting.

Renting: First-hand vs. Second-hand
So, how do you go about renting an apartment in Stockholm? There are two kinds of contracts in Sweden: First-hand and Second-hand. As you might have read elsewhere, a first-hand contract is what you have directly with the owner of the building and a second-hand contract is what happens when you who is holding the first-hand contract, give sublet it further to a third person at an increased rent. So, a second-hand contract is not directly with the owner.

How do you get a first-hand contract? You don’t, unless you are ready to wait 10 years, thanks to the stupidly managed queue system in place. Anyway, I will not expand on this here. Let us focus on second-hand contracts.

Options for Second-hand renting:
There are many options that a new comer might contemplate. For instance, my wife was of the opinion that if she could find out who the owner of a building was, she could probably break the queue, but as it turns out, the vacancies are rare and people never really get back to your questions. You could register with one of the online databases: blocket.se and bostaddirekt.com. Or, you can go via Indica.se. More on that option later.

Okay, I was given a temporary apartment by my employer for 2-3 months so I could take my time in finding a more permanent place. So, this is what I did.

The most realistic options, to me, were either to search online on Blocket.se or Bostaddirekt.com.

1. Blocket.se: (My rating: 1* / 5)
For the first month of my stay in Stockholm I went through Blocket.se, since it is free to register and use. This website has dozens of ads in a day but it is quite a bit of hard work to separate the ads that suit you from most of the junk that makes up blocket. For instance, I found that a large percentage of the ads were either for weekday stays (and on weekends the apartment should go back to the present renter), or for very short period of 15-days or so only. Most of the other ads were for sharing accommodation and even those at quite high prices. From the remaining ads that I found suitable, up to 90 percent did not give contact numbers but asked you to simply send an email describing yourself and your background and the advertiser would pick and chose who to call for the viewing. I immediately knew it was going to be a waste of time sending these emails and waiting, but I thought I would give it a shot and, in the process, learn something about how things work here. I had no expectations of any replies and surely there were none.

But, there were a few ads (about 5 in a period of 10 days) that did mention a phone number, but their conditions were also surprising: housing only for Swedes. Fortunately for me, the first apartment ad that I considered and showed the person’s contact number so I called him up and was invited for a viewing the same day. I went and saw the apartment and was immediately struck by the stark contrast between the size of the apartment and the rent demanded. It was, I think, a 37 kvm apartment and the rent being asked was 10,000 kr/month. We did not like it at all and decided to look at other options.

That is when we hit the wall on blocket. Not a single ad after that got me any response at all. I went like this for about 15 more days and invariably understood that blocket.se is a junk website and none of the ads on it were to be taken seriously. One guy whom I called after reading his ad said that he could not rent his apartment to me because he did not know me. So, I got a bit irritated and asked him why he posted an ad which all strangers were going to respond to, to which he replied more rudely saying, “but I don’t know YOU.” Fine!

2. Bostaddirekt.com: (My rating: 4* / 5)
If you are serious about your chances, I discovered Bostaddirekt.com to be a far greater website. Of course, you need to pay 700 kr to register (membership period of 45 days) but it allows you to search ads and view contact numbers (YES!) of the advertisers. It also includes tips on apartment viewing and contract signing and contains sample contracts and inventory list documents (in English as well) that you can use. But most importantly, I found that:
a. It was easier to search and sort ads from Bostaddirekt.com according to your needs
b. There were no nonsensical ads wasting your time because even the advertiser has to pay
c. Almost all ads had a phone number that could be reached

So, I was a bit slow, due to my unsuccessful attempts with blocket.se and did not have the same confidence to call up the people who had posted ads on bostaddirekt.com. It was very easy for me to see which ads were suitable for me so I picked one and called the guy, who was sorry to inform me that he had already signed the contract with someone else that morning and wished me luck with my search. His attitude was very nice and I felt encouraged to continue my search. I called up a few people and in each case, I was too late in reaching out to them. I realized my mistake was that I was responding to ads that were a few days old, while I was trying not to be too impolite by calling up for ads that were posted the same day. So, I gave up all the conflicts in my mind and called up each ad that I liked, as soon as it was posted.

I got a good response from most of the people I called up. I visited a few apartments for viewing and they all seemed genuine and it was really up to me to strike a deal with one of them.

On the whole, my judgement is this: Don’t waste your time with Blocket. Register with Bostaddirekt.com immediately and start calling up as soon as you see an ad. You need to be quick here as the first few callers are taken seriously, after which it becomes a sort of headache for the advertiser to manage the hundreds of callers for one ad that they posted.

3. Indica.se: (My rating: 4* / 5)
There is, though, a very easier and safer alternative for finding an apartment if blocket and bostaddirekt aren’t working for you. It is this website Indica.se. Basically, it is being run by an Indian guy, Kaushik, who is settled in Sweden. The website posts of a huge excel sheet of available apartments and their features and expected rent and you drop a mail to Kaushik with the apartment that you are interested in and he can send you pictures of the apartment and also arrange a visit for you. There is no limit on how many apartments you show interest in and visit and it doesn’t cost a penny to do all this. The only downside is that in case you do finalize an apartment through him, you will need to pay a one time fees of 2,000 kr but the upside is that it saves you a lot of effort and he even draws up the contract for you. And rest assured that you will not be cheated by him as he has a good track record. I have spoken to a lot of people who have used this option, including myself, and I can tell you that it is 100% safe and you will have your piece of mind.

Wanna know my personal view on how to land an apartment with least hassle? I would suggest:
1. Forget about blocket.se. Erase it from your memory.
2. Register with Bostaddirekt.com and pay the registration fees. It is worth it. Search for as long as you can afford but my expectation is that you should be able to find something good in less than a month.
3. If you cannot afford to waste any more time, go to Indica.se and call up Kaushik (his number is published on the website). Pick the apartment that you like, visit it personally then pay the fees and its yours.

I hope my article was useful to you. I would love to hear your experiences and any corrections you might want to point out to my article. Happy hunting!