Flat-hunting

First of all, read Your Living City articles on flat-hunting to understand peculiarities on the rental apartment markets in Sweden.

Here is the list of websites in English where you can search for flats in Stockholm.

• Bostad Direkt
• I've used this website a few times. 
• Residensportalen
• A colleague recently used this website to find a tenant to her apartment. It looks more English-speaker-friendly than Bostad Direkt.
• Renthia
• A reader of this blog post let me know this website through his/her comment. For some reason, rent is denominated in Euro.

From my recent experience of flat-hunting (April 2016), I recommend using Bostad Direkt. You no longer need to pay a fee to contact landlords. Instead, you will monthly pay about 4% of the rent once you start renting an apartment found through Bostad Direkt. The number of apartments advertised is a lot more than Residensportalen or Renthia.

But there is one important thing to remember. Bostad Direkt allows you to contact landlords only via its own website. If you just send a simple message like "I'm interested in your apartment," you won't receive a reply. Landlords receive tons of messages like this. Your message must stand out. So you should:

1. Describe who you are (age, gender, occupation) and how you end up living in Stockholm.
2. Be enthusiastic, like "I’d like to have a good time during this summer in Stockholm by staying at your apartment!"
3. Leave your phone number and email address within the message so that landlords find it easy to contact you. (There is a profile page for each would-be tenant, but the landlords do not seem to read it.)

And one last tip. Never ever be picky. Be flexible about moving-in and moving-out dates. Don't expect to have a washing machine within your apartment. Don't expect to be able to live in your preferred area. Expect moving at least once a year, unless you buy an apartment (which essentially means renting an apartment from the bank, by paying monthly mortgage). Enjoy living in different parts of Stockholm (as I did, living in 10 different locations over 8 years).

If you're working and fed up with moving once a year, ask your employer if they can rent an apartment for you. The rent control does not apply to apartments rented by corporations. The rent is higher than the subletting market (e.g., Bostad Direkt), but you're more likely to be able to stay at the same apartment until you wish.

Good luck!

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Below is what I wrote back in 2010, which may not be up to date.

Finding an apartment is very tough in Stockholm. Rent is regulated below the market price, so the rental market is very thin. Renting a flat directly from the owner is impossible unless you've been in the queue for three years or longer (104 weeks on average, up to 20 years for popular areas, according to a 2010 survey). The only option for foreigners is, therefore, a sublet for a certain period of time. Those Swedes renting an apartment after a long queue do not want to leave the apartment even if they do not need it for a while (because they go abroad, move out with their new partner, or want to stay out of the city center during the summer period). These are the people looking for someone to live in their apartment.

The Local, Sweden's online newspaper in English, explains the peculiarity of Sweden's rental housing market in an article explaining how to find student housing in Sweden and in an article reporting nearly 40 percent of apartments in Stockholm are illegally sublet as of April 2010 and in an article arguing that richer people live in the city center anyway as of August 2010.

Be very flexible when you are searching for a flat. Your ideal apartment is unlikely to come by. If the apartment is livable, you'd better take it immediately. Most likely, you'll be allowed to stay there only for a year at maximum.

If you are a student, KTH's website publishes a list of vacant apartments/rooms for students in English (dead link, but it may have moved somewhere within KTH website).

Some more pieces of information can be found on Stockholm News, which essentially says it is impossible for non-Swedish speakers to rent an apartment (unless you are a student).

The best (and effectively the only) way to find an apartment for English speaking non-students is the online real estate agency called Bostad Direkt. Pay 695 krona (which can be done online easily with your credit card), and for next 45 days you'll have access to contact details of those looking for a tenant (this is no longer true, as of April 2016; see above). It's not cheap, but it's probably not too expensive given the market situation. You can browse the list of apartments without paying. Therefore, you can pay only after you find an apartment of your interest. Even if you don't use their service, the website offers useful pieces of advice in (a bit broken) English on tenancy contracts in Sweden. Do check their website.

Among Swedish websites for flat-hunting, it seems everybody recommends blocket.se. It's all in Swedish, and rather hard to navigate, though. For apartments in Stockholm, you need to click Stockholm, Bostad, Lägenheter, Stockholms stad, and then the name of your area of interest. See below for geographical locations of each area of Stockholm.

A few tips to use Bostad Direkt.

1. It's best NOT to restrict your search by the length of the lease contract. For some reason, many apartments are advertised as a short-term lease contract with possible extensions up to 12 months. Some landlords prefer offering a short-term contract and extending it conditional on the good performance of a tenant.

2. Checking the website at least three times a day. Each landlord seems to receive lots of phone calls and email messages immediately after they place an ad. He or she allows people to view their flat in the order of how quickly they contact. If you're late, it's unlikely that you can have a chance to view the apartment. Even if you do and like the apartment, you are unlikely to get the apartment because someone else who contacted the landlord earlier than you did will take it. (It seems Swedes do not pick tenants based on the impression. Rather they seem to adopt the "first come, first served" policy to be fair.

3. Don't forget placing your own ad after paying the fee to Bostad Direkt. Once you log in, click "Edit Ad" on the left column. Make your phone number visible. Some landlords seem to prefer contacting prospective tenants by browsing these ads rather than placing an apartment ad. (I once got an apartment this way.)

4. If you prefer to live in a popular area of Stockholm such as Hammerby sjöstad, allow at least 3 months to search.

5. Searching by area can be confusing because suburban area names do not necessarily correspond to station names or municipality/county names. The website does not provide the map of Stockholm. Let me organize them by railway lines.

Stockholm areas by public transportation link

Metro green line

From the city center to the west:

• Bromma, Vällingby, and Hässelby

From the city center to the south:

• Skarpnäck branch: Johanneshov, Bagarmossen, and Skarpnäck
• Farsta strand branch: Enskede and Farsta
• Hagsätra branch: Enskede, Bandhagen, and Hagsätra

Metro red line

From the city center to the north:

• Gärdet (the Röpsten branch), Danderyd (the Mörby centrum branch)

From the city center to the southwest:

• Liljeholmen, Hägersten (the Fruängen branch), Skärholmen, Botkyrka (the Norsborg branch)

Metro blue line

From the city center to the north

• Hjulsta branch: Sundbyberg, Spånga
• Akalla branch: Solna, Kista

Tvärbanan

• Bromma, Gröndal, Liljeholmen, Årsta, Hammarby sjö (in the order from Alvik to Sikla Udde)

Pendeltåg

• From Stockholm Central to the south: Älvsjö

Buses from Slussen to the east

• Nacka