[Closed] Sweden house experiences

Mrs Pigface lives in Varmland, not sure if your asking about rentals or want to buy a place.

You could also post it here on the biggest swedish mtb site:

http://happymtb.org/forum/list.php/1

third line in first box, press it and you can register.

http://happymtb.org/forum/login.php/1

cheers

jesper

Im from the north of sweden. I wasnt into mtb when lived there. My home town has an uplift skilift in the centre of town 🙁

Åre is the biggest ski and mtb place really. If you bought there you could possibly rent out in the winter easily.

cheers all. looking to buy in a good mtb area. I'll check out the website and Ill consider Are. any other top tips appreciated.

I understand that Swedish Housing is run by the Mafia.

I understand that Swedish Housing is run by the Mafia

Drat!! Beat me to it 😆

Is that a Killing Joke ?

Is that a Killing Joke ?

What's an 80's hardcore band got to do with it?

[b]Hels[/b], the killing is either made by the the porridge speakers or rotten fish eaters.

Us Swedes, who speak correctly, are happy enough with eating dead Reindeer.

[s]how far north? [/s]

[s]could[/s] norrland will be a [b]very very[/b] short biking season and be [b]very very very[/b]cold for a [b]long[/b] time. there is a depopulation problem in the north of sweden for a reason you know!

[hoping this isn't just stating what you are already aware of!]

OK, so you're looking to buy (live??) in “a good mtb area”. Do you mean somewhere that has infrastructure specifically set up for biking (i.e. a ski-resort type place), or somewhere that you can ride in the mountains? If the former, then although several of the ski areas have begun to develop mtb as a summer activity, very few are remotely comparable to what you might find in the Alps. Åre is the biggest and best known setup, with a premium attached to it due to the type of crowd it attracts (esp. winter). I assume you're going to live there, but if not then, as above, the rental prices could be good when you're not using the place. Other ski “resorts” would be similar (note that most towns up north have ski tracks and lifts if there are hills, but they are not resorts).

If you are not looking for a “resort” then it's worth bearing in mind that Norrland is a big area. It's not like the Alps where you have quite a high population, little villages all over the place, loads of great tracks packed into a small area. Distances are big, and the diversity of riding on your doorstep may not be as high as you might expect. For example, let's imagine you base yourself somewhere good for riding close to the centre of Norrland – Hemavan, for example. You're nearly 600km driving to Härjedalen or Riksgränsen in either direction, and the best part of 5 hours from the nearest city. Great riding potential in all of these, but lots of traveling to get anywhere off “your own patch” for something a bit different.

You might have other motivations for moving over there, but if volume, quality and diversity of riding on your doorstep is the primary one then you will need to do your homework to ensure you are not disappointed. And that's before any other factors are considered. I love some aspects of Sweden, and riding is great in loads of different ways, but I'd think long and hard about what you want or expect from it before committing yourself to a move to Norrland. Personally I wouldn't move back solely for the riding versus many areas of the UK or central Europe. That said, the folks on happymtb will disagree and likely be helpful in your search.

On the plus side, housing in most places in the north is absurdly cheap in relation to the property-obsessed UK. On the scenic areas of the coast and places like Åre prices are inflated, but elsewhere the prices some of my friends have paid for housing would shock anyone from the UK.

Bajsyckel

Thanks very much for taking time out for such a useful response. The Mtb is secondary, but a v close second, to finding somewhere remote that me and mrs can escape to from may to sept. the cabins you see available in norrland are just the sort of thing, but we are starting to realise that we may need to be say max 4 hrs from Stockholm rather than 9 or 10 hrs. So we may need to find something like 500,000kr to get what we want, Are is not for us, but maybe somewhere between there and the east coast?

As far as riding, not particularly looking for all mountain, just good xc and strack, through forests and round lakes etc is what rocks my boat. Love just pedalling through good scenery, which Sweden looks great for

Weve only found hemlet.se as an agent with any sort of useful website

In sweden people often have 2nd properties. Search for "sommarstugor" , that will hopefully fit with your budget. These are smaller properties, not always AS insulated or near civilisation as more expensive houses.

Norrland is cheap. 4-5 hours out of stockholm possibly more so.

I'm in Sveg now and there are 3 bedroom houses going for around £35k.
I fly up from Stockholm and it takes about 1.30 hrs. Driving up is a pain and takes over 6 hours.
Norrland is even further north.

It is snowing this morning.

Fwiw, if I was looking for a sommarstuga,
I'd be looking down towards Skåne - you could fly into Gothenburg.

I meant to say "4-5 hours out if stockholm more expensive than norrland possibly)

You basically need a car to get around in sweden if you're getting a sommarstuga. It's a huge country.

Porridge speakers 😆 when you get used to accents they do sound very strange.

I went and did some MTBing around Safsen and it was awful, the trail just followed the snowmobile trail and was 40% unrideable. I dont think they had really thought it out. I wanted to do the Vasaloppet mtb this year but wont be there.

Have a look on here:

[url= http://kartor.eniro.se/hemnet-beta?brokerHost=http://www.hemnet.se ]hemnet[/url]

Villor/radhus - house
Fritidshus - summer house/ look for "vinter boende" if you want somewhere that is possible to live in the winter in.
Bostadsrätter - Shared leasehold. (You have the right to live in your "house/flat" but you are actually buying a part of the whole estate/building. (Cheaper to buy (no stampduty or pant (Default insurance), has a fee, often has paid heating etc)
Gårdar - Farm
Tomter - Land

Think what you want. Much of Sweden has next to no people. Even where I live in the south, Skåne, I can go out into the woods and never see a soul so if you just want solitude then look anywhere. Skåne, Belekinge and Hallands are really near to Copenhagen Airport (It takes me 30mins on the train to get there) so if you just want woods and lakes it might be worth looking there.

If you want snow and mountains then it will have to be further North. There is a skiing place in the South that did downhill biking (Vallåsen) but they just got bought and dumped the DH :(. Anywhere near a big ski place will have a premium.

It depends what you want.

Basically, as posted above, sounds like you want to look for a Stuga. The landscape is littered with these and they vary from pretty rudimentary (but great), to smallish houses that you can live in all year round.

Saying you want remote, Norrland gives you options for that, and for scenery lakes and forest. But then relative to most parts of the UK much of the rest of Sweden does so too, with the benefit of easier access for flights etc. The other thing worth pointing out is that large parts of Sweden are very flat compared to the UK - if you want hills (generally speaking) you need to get as close to the Norwegian border as possible, but then access from Sweden and the south gets trickier. That said some of the less hilly places and coastal areas have other charms. Not meaning to put you off Norrland in any way, but some people from the UK might struggle getting their head around the scale of the area.

As some of the other posters have suggested, some of the southern areas are pretty good for the types of thing you describe, with the benefit of easy access. Somewhere like the Bohuslän on the West Coast gives you great forest, islands, good riding, a bit of hills(ish), and easy access from Göteborg or Oslo. As a consequence it is popular and expensive (relatively). This might at a glance seem way off what you were thinking (i.e. not remote at all in Swedish terms), but might be worth a thought. Similar but northern(ish) is the Höga Kusten area, but anywhere on the coast attracts a premium and again, the distance to travel from international airports is higher. Having said all that, move somewhere rural and inland in the north and you could almost get an old mansion with land and a crap Volvo estate for getting around for the kind of money you're suggesting.

I would look at dalarna for what you seem to be looking for, especially Falun and maybe Mora.

Falun have a great biking community and they have some mtb-specific trails which are rare in Sweden. I'm not sure about the biking in Mora (i will go and check it out this summer) but you have Gesunda for DH really close.

Göteborg is great for biking and i don't think you will have a problem finding solitude anywhere in sweden. As others have said there are miles and miles of nothing but forest.

Other towns that may have great biking is Jönköping and Sundsvall they are both surrounded by hills and i see ride reports from them on happymtb.se every now and then.

The thing is that you need people to make trails (and keep them from getting overgrown) and since there is a lot of people in gothenburg and stockholm you get a lot of trails. If you go to rural norrland there might not be anything to ride...

Bajscykel: I'm from Hoga Kusten, and it's only now 13 years later after moving away from there that I realise how AWESOME it would be for biking, boating, skiing...and in general good life style.

Then again, a 2 bedroom semi in Gateshead isn't to be sniffed at.

Gun to head.

Oh and I should add you should support HV71 😉

Really cool advice everyone. Thanks or taking time out to help me. Appreciated. Skane sounds promising. We're heading out soon for a reccy