RED, WHITE OR YELLOW?

At the beginning of our Swedish adventure, we set ourselves a “six-month limit”. In proper English… after six months we would decide whether we would stay here or return to Belgium. If we stayed, we would buy our own house as soon as possible. Renting is a waste of money, and our rental house is just big enough / just too small for the two of us and the 9 four-legged friends. We didn’t really wait for that six-month limit. As the summer progressed, we more and more often looked at Hemnet.se, the largest Swedish real estate site. There you find a large number of houses, but after entering our search filters (read “requirements”) only a relatively small number remained. Well, our requirements were also quite extensive!

The house must be big enough for us and the animals with a large garden and preferably as few neighbours as possible. And of course, a spacious guest room for friends and family!
No renovation project since neither of us are handy enough to do much ourselves. Not too far from the three clinics where Valérie works and close to a supermarket for weekly shopping.
Oh yes, and close to a lake because our Tollers love to swim.
And all that within our budget!

*Location of red, white and yellow. Blue is where we live now.*

During each of our bike rides in July and August we tried to drive by a few houses and then you saw that reality did not always match the advertisement. All too often the outside pictures were taken in such a way that you could not see the surrounding houses or a nearby busy road or railway. In the case of houses that seemed good in the advertisement and also good in reality, the “besiktningsprotokoll” was often disappointing.
The what? The “besiktningsprotokoll”, a kind of inspection report that most sellers have drawn up by an independent inspection body. This report gives a complete description of the house with all its positive points but more important all the defects. And it is precisely this often long list of defects that can be quite sobering, especially with older houses. Rot damage in the wooden structure, leaking roofs, mold in the attic or basement, excessive moisture levels, ... Our list became shorter and shorter, but that also reduced the stress of making a choice.

After a long search, we finally had a shortlist of three houses that met our long list of requirements and had a relatively good “besiktningsprotokoll”.
A yellow, a white and a red one.

The yellow seemed perfect! A spacious, well-renovated house, large garage and lots of storage space. Downstairs, all the interior walls had been removed, giving you a loft effect.
Surrounded by green meadows, a beautiful panoramic view all around and no neighbours.
It did need a new roof and some of the facade panels needed replacing. The route to the clinic also had an 8km stretch of unpaved road. If you wanted to avoid it in the winter, you had to take a half-hour detour.

The white seemed perfect! In the Hundsjövägen (the dog lake road) 200 metres from the Hundsjön (the dog lake). Perfectly renovated inside by the last owners.
It did need a new roof and some of the facade panels needed replacing.
The living area was with a 127m2 also a bit on the small side.

The red seemed perfect! A spacious, well-renovated house in a wooded area with only one neighbour.
It did need a new roof (déjà vu?!?) but no facade panels had to be replaced.
But in any direction you left, you always had three kilometres of unpaved road, which is a point of attention for the winter.

After several visits to the three houses and after a comparative study of the three “besiktningsprotokolls”, we decided to take our chance with the red house.
Real estate agencies in Sweden work with a bidding system, the initial asking price is also not a negotiable price but rather a starting price.

Before we made our first offer, we had set a maximum price for ourselves. There was one other interested party and for a few days there was some bidding back and forth. Until we finally reached our maximum and unfortunately the other bidders went over that. So, we decided to forget about the three houses and start a new search. In the week that followed, we ultimately did not look much more on Hemnet.se and that turned out not to be necessary. One week after the bidding we suddenly got a call from the realtor of the red house. The other candidates apparently had problems getting a loan and if we were still interested, we could have the house for our last bid.

*The sign at the red house… it had to be!*

Long story short, we bought a typical red Swedish house! With enough space for family and friends visiting!

Our move is planned on January 20th, again “with a little help from our friends”, George and Jean-Paul. Thank you guys! We make a great “moving team” together ;-)

TOLLERS AND ACE(S)!

SEX MÅNADER I SVERIGE…