SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

PROPERTY

Swedish dream homes: 5 of Sweden’s most popular property ads

From a four-room apartment in Gothenburg’s Karlatornet to a charming yellow wooden villa on an island in the Baltic sea: here are some of the properties Swedes have been lusting after recently.

Swedish dream homes: 5 of Sweden's most popular property ads
Karlatornet in Gothenburg is the tallest building in the Nordic region. Photo: Adam Ihse/TT

The vast majority of Swedish properties are listed on property site Hemnet, from small inner-city studio apartments to sprawling mansions.

Unsurprisingly, this makes it a popular site for those actually planning on moving house, but the well-styled properties and over-the-top estate agent descriptions also draw a lot of curious Hemnet-surfers.

Below are some of the most popular properties on the site last week.

Karlatornet, Gothenburg

This three-bedroom apartment on the 34th floor of Gothenburg’s Karlatornet, the tallest building in Scandinavia, is up for grabs… if you have 9 million kronor to spare.

The lucky buyer will have a panoramic view over the city of Gothenburg and out to sea, complete with a private balcony and access to a shared roof terrace with a bookable outdoor kitchen that offers space for 25 sitting guests.

The apartment has a modern design – not much of a surprise considering it was completed last year – with granite floors in the bathrooms and a stylish kitchen in muted grey tones. There’s even a washing machine and tumble dryer in the apartment’s own laundry room, so there’s no need to worry about having to carry your laundry down 34 flights of stairs for your weekly slot in the communal laundry room.

The monthly fee also gives you access to a dog spa, film room, cycle storage room and garage as well as access to Karlatornet’s gym and spa, as well as a restaurant and cafe which you can access without even going outside.

There’s also a manned reception desk on the ground floor for that real hotel feeling.

The film room in the Karlatornet skyscraper. Photo: Adam Ihse/TT

Köpmanholm, Norrtälje

This six-room villa on Köpmanholm was built in 1912 and offers you direct access to the sea, complete with your own personal pier with space for a few boats.

At the top of the hill is a three-bedroom villa with charming period features, while further down the hill you have your own separate house for guests directly by the shore.

The house boasts views of the sea from almost every room and has been renovated to a high standard without losing its historic charm. It takes around an hour to get to Stockholm by car, and is perfectly situated in the northern archipelago for summer evenings spent cruising around by boat.

Unsurprisingly, all this doesn’t come cheap – it’s on the market for 23.5 million kronor.

The ferry between Köpmanholm and neighbouring Furusund. Photo: Pontus Lundahl/TT

Djursholm, Stockholm

Fancy moving to Djursholm and becoming neighbours with members of Abba, royals and some of Sweden’s richest people?

You’ll have to have deep pockets: this 11-room house from 1897 on Slottsvägen is on the market for an eye-watering 67.5 million kronor.

For that, you’ll get five bedrooms, a sauna, wine cellar, four reception rooms, a huge kitchen and modern bathrooms, as well as your own pool complete with pool house – and you’re only a 22 minute drive from central Stockholm.

The house is nestled in a private, well-tended garden with lots of outdoor areas to enjoy the summer sun.

Aerial photo of houses on Djursholm. The house on sale is not in the picture. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT

Åsmunderud, Grums

This is the perfect home if you’ve always dreamed of moving out onto a farm in the Swedish countryside. This six-room farmhouse on 37 hectares of land includes 27 hectares of your very own forest, where you can go foraging for mushrooms and berries throughout the year.

The home itself has a large American-style covered veranda with lots of space to sit and enjoy a drink in the sunshine, with your own pool around the side of the house.

There are four bedrooms, a large kitchen and two reception rooms, as well as a small office.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s a separate house for guests, and a large barn perfect for holding events, complete with its own farm shop. The house was built in the 1980s, but renovations to the facade and roof give a modern feel.

It’s in Grums in Värmland, around 20 minutes from Karlstad, and is on the market for 6.5 million kronor.

A glade in a forest in Värmland. File photo: Fredrik Broman/imagebank.sweden.se

Värmdö, Stockholm

For those interested in architecture, this newly-built, seven-room, wood-panelled home, accessed by a small bridge, is a dream.

Situated on the island of Värmdö, around 45 minutes by car from Stockholm, it has been built “to Feng Shui principles” in order to “create a feeling of balance and harmony”.

Whether you believe in Feng Shui or not, the large windows provide lots of natural light and views of the nearby woods, and the building’s rounded corners and muted, minimalistic design makes it a great place to relax.

It boasts four bedrooms, one of which has its own walk-in wardrobe and connecting bathroom, where you can take a bath with views of the forest outside, as well as two shower rooms and an “atelier”, which you could use as an office or extra bedroom.

There are a few things you’d need to finish off yourself – some work to the garage and in the garden, but nothing that would stop you from moving in. It’s on the market for just under 11 million kronor.

Member comments

  1. As an added bonus of the house in Åsmunderud, the 37 hectares come with a guaranteed minimum of 37 trillion mosquitoes in the summer months!

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

PROPERTY

INTERVIEW: ‘Most foreigners in Sweden don’t know they can get back excess rent’

In Sweden, people subletting apartments are not allowed to charge more in rent than they themselves pay. But foreign subtenants don't always know this. We asked Roland Sjölin, lawyer at the Swedish Tenants' Association, about how to get back excess rent.

INTERVIEW: 'Most foreigners in Sweden don't know they can get back excess rent'

More and more of the people asking the Swedish Tenants’ Association, Hyresgästföreningen in Swedish, for help with excess rent are foreigners, Sjölin told The Local in an interview.

“The problem is that if you’re coming from another country, and you’re subletting an apartment, you’re probably not familiar with the rules in Sweden, because in other countries, it might be okay to overcharge your tenants.” 

He said that clients from India in particular seeking help from the association were now “very common”. 

“Many people come here to work as engineers in the IT sector and then have to rent somewhere,” he said, adding that as a group Indians appeared to be “very aware of their rights.”

Sweden’s rental sector is heavily regulated, with first hand contracts negotiated between landlords and the Tenants’ Association, and the rent that can be charged for second-hand contracts limited to only a small fraction above what the first-hand renter pays. 

“You’re not allowed to make any profit subletting an apartment in Sweden,” Sjölin explains. “You can only charge the subletting tenant the same rent as you [the first-hand tenant] are paying to your landlord, and then you can add the costs for internet and electricity, and perhaps a parking lot, if that is included.” 

Tenants’ Association lawyer Roland Sjölin. Photo: supplied.

You can also add a påslag or “markup”, if you are renting out the apartment fully furnished, but this cannot exceed more than 15 percent of the rent. 

That doesn’t mean that most landlords follow the law. The competition for rental apartments, especially in Stockholm, is so intense, that unscrupulous sublet landlords often try to get away with charging well over the legal amount, charging what is known in Sweden as ockerhyra, or “excess rent” and hoping that their tenants are too desperate to complain.  

What many foreigners do not realise is that even after the rental period is over, they can still get back any excess rent they have paid by applying to the Rental Board or Hyresnämnden, which functions like a court judging rental disputes. 

“If you have the evidence then it’s fairly easy,” Sjölin said. “I get a new case every second week on repayment of unfair rent, and I think that I win most of them.” 

“Nowadays, you can get paid back excess rent up to 24 months back in time, so people tend to get more money,” he added. “In some cases, they can get 200,000 kronor. In other cases, perhaps it’s only 30,000 kronor or 60,000 kronor. It depends on how long you have rented the apartment, and how excessive the rent you’ve been paying has been.”

The first step is to establish what would have been a fair rent, either by asking your landlord what they themselves pay directly or by checking with the Tenants’ Association.

“Because we negotiate most rents in Sweden, we normally know what the firsthand rent is,” Sjölin explained.

Then you need to collect together your evidence.

“It’s a good thing to have a written contract and also papers from your bank showing that you paid rent every month, and perhaps photographs of the apartment, so the rental board can get an idea of the apartment you were renting and what would be a fair rent, and also the termination for the contract so you can show the court how long you’ve been living in the apartment.” 

But Sjölin underlined that since Sweden has free burden of evidence, none of this is essential. 

“Even if you’ve been paying in cash, if you have witnesses who can testify what you were paying each month, you still have a chance of getting your money back. It’s a bit more tricky, but I’ve won two cases like that this year.” 

People in Sweden, he explained, tend to wait until the rental period is over before seeking to get paid back excess rent rather than challenging their landlord while they are still living in the apartment. 

“You don’t have any legal protection for your home for the first two years, so if you bring the matter up with the person you’re renting the apartment from you risk losing your contract and having to move out, so most people wait until they’re supposed to move anyway,” he said.

If you apply to the rental board for a refund close to the day you move out, you can then make your landlord pay back all excess rent paid in the 24 months leading up to the date you contacted the rental board.

If you are a member of the Tenants’ Association, you can contact them and ask for help with your application, but there are also specialist companies, like Orimlig Hyra AB who will buy your case off you and give you a refund within 48 hours, saving you a long wait in exchange for a cut of the money reclaimed. 

Sjölin said that the rental board normally took about 8 months to come to a judgement, but that if the person with the first hand contract appeals, that could extend the waiting time by between six months and a year.

SHOW COMMENTS