Woman secures Stockholm apartment after record 41 years in housing queue

Published 24 October 2024
- By Editorial Staff
Barnängsgatan på Södermalm i Stockholm.

Åsa Frigsarve accepted a three-room apartment in Södermalm after being in the housing queue for 41 years. This is a record for an apartment mediated by Stockholm’s housing agency.

It was in 1983 that Åsa joined the housing queue and lived in a three-room apartment on Tjärhovsgatan in Södermalm for over 40 years. However, when she started to approach retirement, she felt that a lower rent would be necessary. Then she found the third floor on Barnängsgatan.

– The rent is lower here, I don’t want to spend all my money on living and eating. You have to be able to live a little too, says Åsa to Mitt i Stockholm.

Via Stockholm’s housing agency, you pay SEK 200 per year to be in the queue for rental housing. The waiting time varies depending on the property and area, but most people can get a home for between five and twelve years. In 2023, the average waiting time was nine years. There are currently around 860,000 people in the queue, and those who have been waiting the longest have been waiting since the 1980s.

The apartment Åsa has been given is on the seventh floor of a 1960s house. She has been in the queue for 41 years, which is a record for the housing agency. It is, however, unusual for an apartment to be sold with a waiting time of over 20 years, according to Marika Klerby-Nordström, head of communications at Stockholm’s housing agency.

– These are often what are perceived to be gems in the inner city, preferably in older building styles. Partly because they are charming, but rents are often lower in the older stock. We broker some of these every year, but demand is greater than supply and then the waiting time is pushed up, she says to the newspaper.

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