A place to call home

Today we bought an apartment! We have been looking for a place since we moved to Stockholm because our present apartment is a temporary sublet. Stockholm is rather unique when it comes to its housing market in that it is really hard to rent but fairly easy to buy. You don't actually buy the apartment but buy the right to live there and pay a fee to the housing association. People often misunderstand this system and think it is a bad deal to pay such big amount of money 'just to be able to rent' but in reality it works as a normal owned apartment because you obviously are able to sell your 'right to rent' again for a similar amount. In fact Sweden is one of the countries where the housing market has not crashed (at all) and the prices are high but also not overpriced. The benefits are that you get a well-run association that takes care of all the external maintenance of the larger house and infrastructure. The stairwells are meticulously well-kept and the systems such as electricity and pluming are looked after before any damage can happen. The back yards are communal and often have small play grounds and there is always a room for the strollers (and bicycles) downstairs. They really love their children here.

We bought a two bedroom (also referred to as a '3 room apartment' here) apartment in the part of Stockholm called Södermalm, an old working class area that has been gentrified to a more bohemian, hip neighborhood. It has an open plan kitchen/living room, which is not very common in apartments here but I really got to like this setup in the US because you can all be in the same room together while doing a range of activities. This is code for "Zoe can't easily get into trouble without me watching". The two bedrooms are fairly small but sufficient as one for Zoe and one for the adults. It is about half the size of our two bedroom condo in California, mainly because it lacks a stair case and only has one bathroom. It also lacks decent size closets which will be the biggest challenge but luckily it comes with storage space in the basement.

I am hugely excited about this place, it is beautiful and bright and embodies all the Scandinavian minimalism and clean design that I love. I can't wait till after Christmas when we get to move in.