If you need me, I’ll be browsing Pinterest…
Many changes have taken place for us over the last week. Not least, we sold our apartment and bought a new one (well, contracts have been exchanged and the process is underway). We’ll still be living in Stockholm – in a different area of the city called Helenelund. As we work from home 50% of the time, we felt that we needed more space to be able to have a home-studio setup to allow us to work more efficiently and effectively.
The whole thing happened rather quickly, (and might I say in a very un-Swedish fashion). I shall elaborate: The housing market (as I have come to know it) in Sweden nearly always operates on a bidding system – apartment viewings are at very fixed times and following these open-house shopping experiences, potential buyers begin a ‘bidding war’.
With a housing shortage in Stockholm and changes coming into effect regarding mortgages in the summer, it seems that there is more competition than ever when it comes to apartment listings and we have heard so many first hand accounts of people losing out during the bidding process.
So… last Thursday I received a phone call from our estate agent with an offer from a potential buyer who wanted to bypass this whole system (she wasn’t Swedish) and just make a fair offer. After a little negotiation, it seemed that everyone was happy and we accepted her offer – bearing in mind she hadn’t even seen the apartment at this point!
Inspired by our buyer’s forward thinking, now knowing our flat-hunting budget and not wanting to miss out ourselves, we took the same daring step and reached out to the estate agent of an apartment we were keen to make an offer on and asked what price the seller would accept.
Thankfully for us, it all worked out… By Friday afternoon we had viewed the new apartment, signed the contract to sell our home and buy our new one. And by Friday evening we were ready to crash on the sofa!
But it feels good. The new flat will need a little renovation but it will be great to put our own stamp on it.
So… if you need me, you’ll find me browsing colour schemes, upcycling projects and home decor ideas on Pinterest for the next few months.
Oh and our current flat is no longer the ‘tidy show-home apartment’ that we managed to create for the one-client viewing… that only lasted for about half a day!
Written by Anita on 8th March 2016 in General
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