A ‘summer house’ is by definition a house that is not registered as someone’s permanent address. There are more than 600,000 summer houses owned by regular people in Sweden according to Statistics Sweden.
It has been a long standing tradition for Swedes to build simple wooden cottages nearby nature and ideally by the water, to escape to in the warm summer months; an idyll that still defines their image of Sweden: falu-red painted cottages in an endless organic landscape, reminiscing of a story taken out of an Astrid Lindgren movie.
Buying a Swedish summer house is nothing new to the locals but in recent times it has gained popularity among non Swedes.
So why does the Swedish summer house attract new generation of buyers?
It helps you escape the ordinary day to day obligations you have back home. Due to the amount of time people spend in their summer house it starts to feel like you live there. It ables one to create and experience two separate but very much parallel ways of enjoying life.
If you travel abroad for two weeks, there are so many things to experience and do and not necessarily focused on relaxing. Since most people have some sort of relationship to their summer house environment, through memories with their grandparents or childhood, they can recharge and relax in a more balanced way.
Despite the tradition of Swedish summer houses originally being built to a basic standard, without hot water (or any water at all), drainage, insulation or electricity – and the “minimalistic” aspects being important in their attraction.
But times are changing and you find that many summer house owners are now upping their living standards with features like pools and jacuzzi being less rare.
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