Apartment 2018

2017 was the year of the glacier when it came to selling our apartment. Things moved at a glacial pace. We hired the first realtor in March 2017. For the first couple of showings, Anna and I were excited and thought the apartment would sell relatively quickly. But excitement turned to frustration and negativity. With every showing, we would leave the apartment stating "Why bother, no one is going to come". After the showing, we would talk with the realtor and she would give us the following excuses:

• The market has changed.
• We were asking to much for the apartment.
• The right person has not come yet

She used the first excuse within the first two weeks of the first showing of the apartment. As far as the price goes, we set it 50K sek under what she and 4 other realtors said the apartment was worth. We felt that if we were being unreasonable with the price, part of her job was to tell us. But she didn't and then blamed us for wanting to much. Needless to say, we fired here and got another realtor.

We liked the second realtor and she was working hard to sell our apartment. She got people to the showings, but the ones that seemed interested came up with some crazy excuses as to why they didn't want to buy.

• They wanted the apartment on the 3rd floor and not the 2nd.
  • What floor the apartment was on was stated in the description
• They wanted to be 200 meters up the road.
  • Address was stated in the description
• They wanted a balcony.
  • We did not have one. This was stated in the description.
• They did not like the color of the kitchen.
  • I guess repainting was not an option.
• They did not like the bathroom.
  • Remolding was out of the question I guess.

Based on these type of responses, it was hard to figure out why the apartment was not selling. That was the hardest part I think. If we got some concrete feedback, then we could of changed things to get the place sold. Even though we liked the 2nd realtor and felt she was doing all she could, we felt like maybe we needed a new realtor. A set of fresh eyes and attitude.

So in the middle of December 2017, we hired our 3rd realtor. As they say, 3rd time is a charm and it certainly was.  We sold our apartment 2 days after our first showing, January 2018. We did not get as much as we would of liked, but hey, it was sold. :)

Then we had to find an apartment to live in and only had about 2 months to find one. The thing is, it is about a 2.5 year wait to find an apartment in Malmö. Anna started to scour all the apartment listings, Facebook groups and talking with friends, in hopes of finding a 2nd hand apartment we could rent.  There were a few questionable characters out there wanting us to rent their apartment but their requests made us question if everything was on the up and up. When we started to ask more questions, we found out that some of them did not have the apartment association permission to be renting the apartment 2nd hand. This could be a big problem if the association found out. We would be kicked out along with the original renter. In the end Anna found a good apartment not to far from where we were living.

During the search for the new apartment, we started to sell everything that we could and pack up what we wanted to keep.

For the last two months, our apartment was in total chaos and disarray. We wound up selling most of our furniture and other things that we had.  When we moved, it took Anna and I only 4 hrs to move everything we had. That included a trip to the dump and eating. So it shows just how much we sold and got rid of before our move. The sad thing is, we still need to get rid of a lot more things before we move onto a sailboat. But we have some time to go through our things again to get rid of what we do not need.

How the apartment looked after the move