Dreaming of a Swedish Summer Home

I don't think I have mentioned this before but it started about a week ago when we were talking to Irene and Farfar about houses in Sweden. The house across the street from them was for sale and I think that is what started the conversation. The other thing that sparked an idea was the boat ride we took with Farfar and we passed many nice homes right on the water. I pointed out my favorite and Fredrik had his. Prices for waterfront property was high because you can't get it anymore. It is all protected land now so unless you already own beachfront property you are out of luck. Farfar and the guys thought the beachfront houses are maybe 3-4 million SEK which is about the price we paid for our house in Bothell!

They also said it is a very bad time in Sweden for many people because there are not a lot of jobs and the price of housing has dropped as well. So, we decided to look online at the price of some homes and it was shocking how cheap they were! I was just looking in Hudiksvall at first which maybe isn't a highly desirable area of Sweden but it is a nice town by the sea. I would tell Fredrik how I loved how I smelled like the "beach" here and it reminded me of the same smell we have on the Oregon or Washington coast.

This was one house that I liked very much and it is close to where Farfar and Irene lived previously. It was a bargain price of 2.2 million SEK or about $345K USD! Ah to dream of having a Swedish summer house like this one!

When we got to the family cabin we heard that the land might be for sale next to the cabin and that perked my ears up. There has been talk for many years of getting electricity and/or sewer to the cabin to make it more enjoyable. Over the years they have added some nice things like a chemical toilet in a closet instead of the outhouse and also just last year they added a shower shed with a tankless water heater that runs off a battery or small generator? Still, the cabin is way too rustic for me to want to stay any length of time. I am not sure I have ever spent the night there but it might be fun now with the kids. Just one night though! However, if we bought some land and maybe shared the cost of getting electricity and sewer then maybe that could be a good thing.

It would be a bigger project and definitely more long term because we would have to buy the land, hook it up with electricity and sewer and then of course build a house! However, it is very appealing to add to the cabin property even if we do nothing else than buy some land to give the rest of the family more options if they want to do something with it. I even sent Fredrik with Ingvar who knows the farmer who owns the land to inquire about buying it. He didn't seem opposed to it but had no idea how much so he would have to research and get back to us. I am anxious to hear a number but we imagine it would cost 100-200k SEK or $15k-30k USD. We don't really have a lot of money right now to buy a house that I would want to stay in (1-2 million SEK) but for the price of a car I think we could carry a small loan for a few years! Maybe we even have enough stock to sell to cover this purchase? We used up most of our stock to buy our house so I am not sure. Also, if we do it this way we can buy things in chunks that we can afford over the next 5-10 years. When we are ready to build we will probably be in a better position to get a bigger loan for it. Buying a piece of land for the price we think they want for it is definitely doable!

I decided to see what else is available around Sweden because to be honest .... Jarvso is a very small town and most of the surrounding area is farms and pretty country. There are no big cities around here so the shopping would be pretty slim pickings. We had to drive 30 minutes away to find a smallish mall to shop in. I kind of like my big city conveniences! Fredrik suggested looking in Uppsala but there was just too many houses for sale and most of them were quite expensive. It is too close to Stockholm which drives the prices up so that wasn't a good option. He then suggested closer to Gavle where Erik and Anna currently live. This is one house I really liked in Gavle for just 975k SEK or about $150k USD which isn't a bad price but there is a monthly fee of about $900/month!

They classify this house as a "rowhouse" which usually means a connected set of houses like a townhome or condo. It also seems that the fees here are quite different than at home which only pay for maintenance of the common property. The more common areas you have or the more recreational items it offers, the more you pay. Here it seems that it is common to pay about $1000/month for these fees which help pay for the debt or loan still on the common areas. So, usually it is very cheap to buy one of these places but you still have to pay a high monthly fee. Weird!

So, for now we keep dreaming and the possibility of buying some land next to the cabin gets more and more appealing!