If you are reading this, it probably means that you received good news when the admission results were published last Thursday! Congratulations! You are at the start of a beautiful new journey going to university in Sweden!
In this post, I am sharing my personal experience and advice on finding accommodation. Furthermore, as most international students have to find housing from a distance, it is easier to get scammed. However, there are several ways how you can search and negotiate your housing situation safely!
My experience Finding housing in Sweden is going to be a trial-and-error process and I recommend starting
as soon as possible. I started looking for housing end of march before the results were even published. I tried to map out Lund and its areas near campus in order to narrow down my search. However, as finding student housing near campus and in the city center can be quite competitive I recommend also looking for housing in nearby villages and other cities.
For example, some of my classmates live in Malmo which is 20 minute train ride to Lund. You can also move closer to campus at a later time. In May/June I signed up for the university housing queue and continued my search. At Lund University at least, European students do not have a housing guarantee so the chance that I would receive university accommodation was extremely small, but nevertheless worth a try. Make sure to read your university’s webpage about housing and advice on finding housing. On Lund’s webpage I found Bopoolen, a student housing website run by student associations. Here I applied for several rooms. Around the time that I signed up for the queue, I had two online meetings with potential landlords, from one I got rejected, and the other one I declined since the room had no window.
Eventually, I found my room, which was rather cheap for Lund (less than 4000kr). The landlord told me that I could sign the contract the same day and it would be mine. However, I had my suspicions since it seemed too good to be true. I did the following; I told him that I wanted the room, but asked him if I could talk to someone who lived in the house. My landlord added me to the housing Facebook group. In this group I messaged all the people who lived in the house asking about their experience, to make sure it was not a scam. As soon as I got positive replies, I signed the contract the next day and moved in on July 20th. Bopoolen has an extensive page on how to prevent getting scammed which you can read here, it's specifically about Lund but the advice can be applied in any situation. Besides Bopoolen, which is specific to Lund there are Blocket and Facebook groups that you can join. However, always be aware of scammy situations and do your research.
I hope this post was helpful. Unfortunately, I can only speak of my situation in finding housing in Lund. Down below you will find some more useful advice on housing in all of Sweden!
You can follow my journey living and studying in Sweden on Instagram.