Lerstenen housing queue

Lerstenen owns and manages 1,300 rental homes in Umeå, from studios to five-room apartments in central locations and greener neighbourhoods. They have developed around 800 homes themselves. Parking is applied for through the same customer card. Registering is free. There is no annual fee.

The queue runs on search time, not on queue points. You create a customer card and register interest in each home you want to be considered for. Each advertised home gets its own queue. Among applicants who meet the rules, the offer goes to whoever has the longest search time. It is not a municipal housing agency with a numbered place, but the time is how long you have been actively searching without a break of more than six months. On the logged-in card you can see how long you have searched. If you apply together, search time is taken from whichever of you has searched the longest; you cannot take over a co-applicant's time if you apply on your own. A vacant home stays listed for three to five working days. If you turn it down that is noted, but it does not affect your queue time.

Lerstenen write that the wait in Umeå is about 4-8 years, and on each vacant home they show the average search time. They publish no exact figure in months for the queue as a whole. How long it takes depends on the home and how many others register interest. To keep your search time you need to log in at least once every six months, or you lose it. On Mina sidor you can see when you next need to log in. If you have not been active for 24 months the customer card is deleted. When you accept an offer the card is reset and you lose the search time. After that you must have held the contract for at least three years before they will help with another home in their stock.