Accommodation

Background

Historically and in the recent decades, it has been always difficult to find an accommodation in Göteborg. The issue is not only limited to foreign students or students, but even those who are living permanently here have to fight with this problem. In some city regions one may have to stay in the queue for several years until he may get an desire accommodation. The main reason is apparently that the number of construction of new building is not in balance with the number of new comers to the city. This is from several years ago and unfortunately the problem is still expanding.

Anyway, the key point for finding an accommodation is persistence in searching. There are some places and websites that you can search for accommodation.

Chalmers Accommodation Office

An Accommodation Office will be open at Chalmers (in the Student Centre Origo at Kemigården 1, week 33–37) during 5 weeks in August/September in order to try to assist the students in finding private rooms. You can find many ads of private rooms there. If the landlords speaks only Swedish you can ask Dzintra Tekenbergs (Accommodation office manager) to talk with them and help you to deal with them. Most of new students find their own place with the help of accommodation office.

Chalmers Student Bostader

Chalmers Student Bostader is the office mages the Chalmers' student housings. The only way to get room for international students is to register for that in their website. You have the password in your admission package. (for 2008 students, password is mentioned in the pdf file linked in bottom of your admission page). Use the instructions in that pdf file to log in to the website and check the "Available Apartments" list and reserve an apartment for yourself. Notice the availability time! The "Available Apartments" list for international students always seems deserted in peak of students’ arrivals. So if you did not find a room yet, don’t be disappointed. They put rooms in the website once in while and you should check it frequently to catch one. It is unofficial but Monday’s afternoons it the time they usually announce the vacant rooms in the website!

SGS Student Bostader

SGS Student Bostader is a housing campany exclusively for students.
You have to register first. If you are already in Sweden go their office at ”Kaserntorget 11".(map at hitta.se)
You need to bring your admission letter and your passport. Then they will give you the username and password and a guide for using the website.
If you are not in Sweden but you already acquired your resident permit, and if you are in a rush to find an accommodation, you can register by e-mailing es.redatsobtnedutssgs|fb#es.redatsobtnedutssgs|fb. State that you would like to become a client and you are a student. They will send you an application form. Fill it, and send it to them along with scan of your passport identity page, your resident permit, and your letter of admission.

When you get your get a kundnummer (client number) you can login to their website at and start applying for the apartments in Mina sidor\ Lediga bostader (free apartments) section.
The SGS logic is simple. Those who applied earlier are in priority. So the more you will stay in the housing queue the more likely you’ll find a good apartment. Each person can only apply for 3 apartments at the same time and he/she can only reject the offers up to 3 times. If your desirable apartments is one close to Chalmers, with a kitchen or/and extra rooms, you should be in the queue for at least one year to get it. But if your choice is an apartments which is either far from university, or a single room (enkelrum) without a separate kitchen, you will have chances to get it now. Single rooms are usually sharing a big kitchen in a corridor, and most of them have a ten month contract which means you have to pay only for ten months if you want to stay in them for one year.

You should keep in mind that SGS sends you the offers by post, not email, so if you are in Iran you won’t probably get them in time. Since you have one week to respond after they issue an offer, you should check you offers in SGS website in Erbjudanden (offers) section, and inform the SGS about you decision without seeing the offer.

Notice that there are last minute (sista minut) cases in their website with the ‘first come, first serve’ rule. Registering in SGS is overall recommended, because even if you can’t find a place this year you will have better position in the queue next year. You should apply for an apartment at least every six month to keep your account active.

Studenlya

In this website you can find private ads for rooms and apartments. It is better to look for ads when you are here in Göteborg. Landlords prefer to talk to you face to face before giving any kind of promises or contract. You can find various kind of accommodation from shared room to a full apartment in this website. The point is, you’d better be flexible. If you find a suitable apartment then make a group and go for it.

Boplats

Boplats is a real-estate company which have many good choices for students. You have to register in their website to have access to their database. The problem is you will find many good cases which other people are already in queue for. So you have to register for as much cases as you can to be lucky and get one.

Second hand accommodation:

There are a few number of websites which you can find second-hand accommodation ("Andra-hand"). An example is Blocket.se where you can find private announcements from people who are willing to sublet their apartments to somebody else for a period of time for certain reasons (such as vacation, temporary stay in other countries, business or family trips outside, etc..) or some people who are looking for a flat mate just to share the rent or their living space with someone else.
This could be a possible “alternative” way especially for those who arrived later or as a temporary solution. Later on when you have registered for the public housing service agencies as mentioned above (SGS, Boplats, etc..) and you advance in the queue, you may find your desirable place for "long term".
Here you can find some websites which publish these kind of announcements:

Blocket.se
Here you can find a lot of private announcements regarding sales, rent, sublet, etc..
This website offers a range of announcements not only for accommodation, but also for selling and buying a variety of home appliances, car, bicycle, electronic devices, computers, and everything you can think of! Watching the announcements is free, so you can easily browse it and find your options through different categories. The website is only in Swedish, but for finding announcements regarding accommodation you can follow these steps:
1) First you should choose the place where you are lookling for accommodation in through the list of cities. Number 15 is Göteborg
2) On the top the new page, under -BOSTAD – you should choose “Lägenheter” which means apartments
3) Then from the options below, you should choose “uthyres” which means rent.
4) Then you will find a bulk of announces regarding second-hand accommodation.
This website is the most common place for private announces in Sweden.
http://www.blocket.se/li?ca=15_s&q=&cg=3020&w=1&st=u&mre=&ros=&roe=&ss=&se=

BoPunkten.se
This one is also the same, but the services are only limited to housing subjects such selling, buying and renting. You can freely browse the announcements, but in order to be able to contact the landlord, you have to be registered in the website as a member. Here you can find the link to the website:
http://www.bopunkten.se/

Bostruktur.se
This website also offers different housing services as a private housing consultant. The announcements are free to browse and after finding your desirable choice, you should contact a certain individual consultant which is mentioned on the bottom of the page. The rents for houses can be expensive for a student if s/he wants to live alone, but probably you can share the place with 2 or 3 of your friends as most of places you find there are big houses with 3 or 4 separate rooms…
This option is mostly recommended for the families and the persons who want to share a house with some other people.
http://bostruktur.se/

Göteborgs Posten (GP)
Göteborgs Posten is the daily newspaper of Gothenburg which you can find a range of announcements for housing sales, rents, and etc.. But you have to know just a little Swedish to understand the conditions of the place. However, you can usually dial the person directly and ask him/her about the place where is offered. Communicating in English is very easy for Swedish people, so should not be hesitate to call them personally.
Here is also a link to the GP’s website, but you can find the daily published newspaper also everywhere if you do not have access to the internet.
http://gp.se/gp/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=465

Radios
There are a lot of Persian radios here in Gothenburg which sometimes help new students to find a place through their networks to the Iranian people who live here. One of them which offers a special program every Thursday (Panjshanbe Bazar), is Radio Sedaye Iran and the program is broadcasted online, so you can ring them and ask for some help to find accommodation or just listen to the radio and catch some announces which people call while the program is on the air.

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