Yesterday evening we signed the papers to buy a condo (bostadsrätt)[1] in the Hammaby Sjöstad area in Stockholm. We get the keys on 1 June. Now all we have to do is to sell our house.
The idea to move has been germinating a while. The area we live in now, Stureby, is a really nice area with older houses, apple trees and a lot of history. However, after living here for seven years, we’ve finally realised that we aren’t house people.
Living in an apartment will free us from mowing the lawn, shovelling snow, worrying about the roof or the chimney. Sjöstaden is very new, with all mod cons and closer to the city.
Then there’s the history. Even if we’ve had a good time, there are still bad memories in the walls of the house — the difficult pregnancy and delivery of our son, J’s daughter’s eating disorder. We felt it was time for a new start.
The move will be pretty rushed as we have to do a lot of stuff in the house to make it saleable. It’s going to be an intense period, but we’re counting on having a less stressful time of it in the future.
[1] actually “tenant-ownership”. We own the right to live in a part of an apartment building, but we don’t own the apartment ourselves. The owner’s society, of which we have to be members, does that.
Update: the realtor’s PDF can be seen here.