The cost of housing / income ratio in Stockholm is so out of whack that it’s basically impossible to enter the housing market without at least €50k-75k in savings to have as a down payment for an apartment anywhere nice.
And in addition to this renting is basically kafkaesque. You might be able to sublet a place for up to a year, but the rents are equally horrible compared to the average income. Getting a first hand contract is essentially impossible unless you know a private landlord who will give you preferential treatment, as generally the is a queue in which you need AT LEAST 10+ years to get something not nice at all
It's the same in Switzerland. There is just almost no way to be able to afford a house (or just an apartment), because most of them start at 1 million and I am not even talking about apartments in Zurich.
Thats disappointing. After visiting, I found I really enjoyed both Sweden and Norway, and wouldn't mind moving there someday. Sounds like that may be difficult.
Who wants to live in Stockholm anyway? Malmö is much better connected to Europe. You can basically drive to Germany, You can fly anywhere from Copenhagen which is 20 minutes train ride away from Malmö. Copenhagen airport has a lot more flights than Stockholm.
That said, you get advantage of being right next to Copenhagen. It is a big market of jobs there. Salaries are high because it is a big, crowded city with high living expenses. So you could live in Malmö for cheap and commute to Copenhagen for work.
All that said, as a 26 year old, I managed to take a gap year in Malmö now, after working/saving for 4 years, while managing to keep paying my mortgage, owning a car etc.
Norway's rental market is nothing like Sweden's. In Norway rents may be higher but it's trivial to get a nice apartment in the center of town basically immediately.
Honestly I haven't checked for a few years (currently living in Sweden), but last time I checked most programming jobs where working for engineering (mainly connected to the oil industry) or finance companies as opposed to more pure software companies. Not that this has to be a bad thing in any way. That being said I gather from friends in Norway that the startup scene is slowly growing even there and there are more and more small software companies looking to hire.
