On first of May we are going to celebrate 1 year in our new home. We bought our apartment just a week before the first corona lockdown in Denmark last year. At the beginning there was a bit fare of what will happen with apartment prices but apparantely the prices have increased ever since. Our hunt had actually lasted already for about 2 years. First we wanted to but an apartment in a project. The bank said that they will approve it if Kevin will sell his apartment first. So that what he did, but then the bank wanted us to have at least 1 million DKK in a bank account, so we just gave up our booing. It was actually a good choice since in the end we got better and cheaper place.
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| Building on the left is our home💗 |
CRITERIA
Before buying our home we went to look only 2 more places. I say that we bought a place quite randomly where as Kevin says that he had monitored the market for long time. 😀 At the beginning we also considered a house, but it would have been more further from the center and we are not ready to spend our free time for housework, so we went for apartment. We were looking an apartment mostly in Sydhaven area because we both wanted to be closer to water. And it is also a biking distance from our work.
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| A day when we moved in |
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| First floor without furniture |
These were our main criteria:
- New building (energy class at least A; ours is A15)
- Not a ground floor (ours is 2nd-3rd floor)
- Floor heating
- 3 bedrooms
- Balcony where I can sunbathe 😂 (we got rooftop instead ✌)
- 2 bathrooms (with shower)
- Cellar
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| Second barthrrom! Machines were already in! |
I am also happy that in our building the walls are very thick so we do not hear our neighbours unless they are drilling 😀. The apartment is also through 2 floors and has separated entrance that makes it more feel like small house without garden. I also like that downstairs is open livingroom and kitchen and upstairs bedrooms and both floors have their own bathrooms. Even though we do not have a car, we also got the indoor parking lot and it is convenient to keep our bikes and paddle board there.
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| Definately our favourite place at summer |
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| And grill also |
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Cannot wait to chill here again 😍
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What I still miss, but what was not the priority is to have more windows/light. However in our previous place we had all the afternoon sun and kept the curtains closed so it would not heat up the apartment 😀. Another thing is to have a bath instead of shower in one of the bathrooms. I guess we could remodel our bathrooms but apparantely baths are not popular in new apartment buildings in Copenhagen. And then there could be longer evening sun in our apartment, but Kevin likes it since then we do not need the sun umbrella. It is also a fare point that if we want more sun, we can just go sit by the water in front of the building.
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| Entrance, closests were already in by the project |
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| Livingroom or more like Nolan´s playground 😀 |
LOAN
In Denmark you are allowed to loan maximum 4 times your yearly income (rule implemented after financial crises), so mine + Kevin´s. So it was good that we had saved up quite a bit of money, also thanks to Kevin selling his previous apartment. And the loan comes from 2 places, 20% from the bank that has quite high rent (around 3-5% depending on your profile), so you really want to pay in as much as possible. The rest is coming from moneyinstitut (close to 0%). We got our loan from Danish Bank since they usually are the once willing to take bigger risk.😁 The parking lot works separated from the apartment, meaning that for that you can only take a bank loan. And it cost 150 000 DKK (20k EUR).
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| View to the canal, sometimes swans come to visit 🥰 |
We also hired a lawyer to represent our interests and it was very good. Also taking into account that I signed punch of Danish documents that I did not understand. 😀 One benefit was also that we negotiated moving in a month before we started paying the bank loan. Since nobody had lived in the apartment before, we also got the free maintenance, like color fixing, ventilator (we have our own independent ventilation system), new keys. There will be also another check in couple of years since it is a new building and it is part of that. So we do not need to fix anything ourselves.
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| Bedroom, closets were already in by the project |
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Nolan´s room
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Office, this room could be bigger
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The only bad experience was with the apartment keys. We got only one set of apartment keys and had to survive with them about 3 months. That was due to bad management by the building administrator. Since one of us was on a parental leave at that time, it was not that bad, but definitely next time we will add this to the contract.
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| Starecase |
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| Great area |
AREA
The building has its own courtyard that is good for children to play and families leave their toys here for everybody to play so seems like I can save some money on the sandbox toys. 😀 There is a ferry stop by the building so if I want I could take a ferry to work and it is a nice change to go to city with a ferry. They are also building metro here, but it will be ready in 2024. Will see what it will do with the apartment price. There are also some restaurants close by (sushi, pizza, burger, cafe, bakery, wine) and supermarkets just around the corner so very convenient. 😊 Also a great place for families with children since schools and kindergartens are closed by and they are building the extensions to the school. At least I would like to like to study in a new school. And ofc what I like the most is the water and in the summer you can just jump into water by the building and many nice places to go for a walk.
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| Nolan also approves the playground |
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