A Guide to Queue Points and Apartment Renting on HomeQ
2023-08-01
(This article is also available in Swedish.)
Why It Is Completely Free to Use HomeQ and Join Our Queue
Our goal is to make it achievable, simple, and cost-free to secure a first-hand apartment.
It costs money to join many private and municipal housing queues. There are also countless websites promising access to available rental apartments for a subscription fee of hundreds of kronor per month — even though the apartment listings you "get exclusive access to" are often copied from free services like HomeQ and landlords' own sites. We find this shameful.
For us at HomeQ, it is important that everyone — no matter where in the country they live, how long they've been in queue, or how much they earn — should have a chance to secure safe long-term accommodation.
We therefore collaborate with Sweden's leading real estate companies, who rent out their apartments directly and exclusively via HomeQ. They pay us to appear on our marketplace, to ensure that those of you seeking an apartment meet their requirements, and to use our efficient rental services. For you as a housing seeker, it is completely free to use the service, and it will always remain so!
How the HomeQ Queue Works
All landlords in the same nationwide queue
Over 350 landlords are connected to HomeQ. Together, they have hundreds of thousands of apartments — across the entire country — for you who are seeking your dream home. The queue points you accumulate on HomeQ can be used to apply for apartments from any landlord anywhere in Sweden.
How do I accumulate queue points?
It's simple: On HomeQ, one queue point corresponds to one day in the queue. If you have 365 queue points, you have been a HomeQ user for one year.
Bonus points
Bonus points are awarded to housing seekers who have been in a housing queue with a real estate company that has chosen to join HomeQ. In this case, one bonus point also corresponds to one day in the queue. Bonus points can only be used when applying for the property company's apartments where you have previously accumulated queue points.
Example: When Riksbyggen recently joined HomeQ, queue points that individuals had accumulated in their queue were transferred to HomeQ, but these can only be used for applications to Riksbyggen's apartments on HomeQ.
Who Decides Who Gets an Apartment and What Are the Requirements for You as an Applicant?
Roles of HomeQ and the Landlord in the Rental Process
HomeQ
HomeQ is a platform for both seekers and housing companies. For you as a housing seeker, we are a platform where you can efficiently and easily find apartments throughout the country.
At HomeQ, we gather available apartments from hundreds of housing companies in one place. Instead of finding and registering on countless websites, you as a housing seeker can find available apartments, submit expressions of interest, and respond to offers in the same interface, no matter where in the country you want to live.
We have a queue that you can join, completely free. Some of the many important tasks we have in the rental process include verifying all applicants via BankID and their employment. The system then works automatically, and when you as an applicant send off an expression of interest in an apartment, your profile and the landlord's criteria are matched against each other.
The Landlord
For landlords, we are a platform where they can publish their apartments directly to housing seekers. We also provide other services that make the rental process easier for them, ranging from publishing and advertising to income checks and contract writing.
However, it is the landlord who ultimately decides who will receive a viewing offer or a rental contract, as it is the landlord who manages and owns the apartments, not HomeQ.
Basic Criteria to Register on HomeQ and Start Looking for an Apartment
The basic criteria to get an apartment via HomeQ are based on making it as smooth and efficient as possible for landlords to offer applicants a contract.
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The first criterion for registration is that you must verify your identity. You can do this very simply by verifying yourself via BankID or an alternative login. Read more about it here.
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The second criterion starts when you want to search for an apartment. At this point, HomeQ performs a background check on you. HomeQ uses several databases, including the Tax Agency (Skatteverket) and the Enforcement Authority (Kronofogden), to check your income, if you have debts or payment remarks. This is done because you as a housing seeker are then matched against the landlord's rental policy and criteria for the specific object.
How Apartments Are Rented Out on HomeQ
In most municipal and private housing queues, apartments are rented out strictly according to queue points and the waiting times are often painfully long. On HomeQ, there is more flexibility as the apartments are rented out according to more principles than just "Strictly according to queue points".
A landlord usually offers three to five applicants to come for a viewing, and all applicants are compared against the landlord's criteria. A landlord must always choose a rental principle and they do this in their ads and it is also stated in the ad what rental principle applies.
Currently, there is no feature where you can see your exact place in the queue, but in ads you can see the number of queue points currently required to be among the top 10 applicants in terms of points.
Criteria
Something to keep in mind is that regardless of which rental principle a landlord chooses to apply to their ads, the landlord has also chosen a few criteria that applicants must meet. This means that all applicants are background checked and matched against the landlord's selection criteria.
All landlords have their own criteria that they set in our system. The requirements for the tenant thus vary between different landlords and are not determined by HomeQ.
The most common criteria are an income requirement of three (3) times the monthly rent, and the absence of payment remarks, debt balances, debt restructuring, and personal bankruptcy.
There Are Three Rental Principles Applied by Landlords on HomeQ
When housing companies publish their apartments on HomeQ, they choose according to which principle the apartments should be rented out: Queue points, First-come-first-served, or Random.
Queue Points
Traditional housing queues often go strictly according to queue points, but on HomeQ there is another rental principle related to queue time, Guided by queue points.
- Strictly According to Queue Points
Here, applicants are compared against the landlord's criteria and those who meet these are then ranked according to queue points. When a landlord has chosen the rental principle Strictly according to queue points, it means that the applicant with the most queue points must be offered the apartment. If they decline, the turn goes to the applicant with the second most queue points.
- Guided by Queue Points
Here, applicants are compared against the landlord's criteria and those who meet these are then ranked according to queue points. In the landlord's view, those with the most queue points are shown first, and they thus have a greater chance of getting the apartment. But in the principle Guided by queue points, the landlord does not have to offer the apartment to the person with the most queue points, they can also take into account things like personal letter, family size or financial situation to find a tenant they believe is best suited.
First-Come-First-Served
When it comes to the rental principle First-come-first-served, it means that applications are sorted by application date. In this case, queue points are not taken into account and when an applicant submits an expression of interest in an apartment, it's about in what order the application came in. This means that the landlord chooses to offer an apartment viewing to the housing seekers who expressed interest first for the object.
Random
In the case of Random selection, queue points are not taken into account either, and the applications are ranked randomly. This means that regardless of your queue points or when you apply for an apartment, you have a chance to be offered an apartment via a random selection.
Common Questions About the Queue System, Rental Principles, and Basic Criteria
What happens to my queue points when I get an apartment via HomeQ?
When you have been offered an apartment and signed the contracts, your queue points will be reset to zero. The reason why your queue points are reset is to make it possible for other housing seekers to get a chance to find an apartment, not just those who registered first on HomeQ.
How common are the different rental principles?
In 2022, 19% of all apartments were rented out without queue time as a factor. But the majority of all apartments were rented out (81%) after queue points. Only 6% of all apartments were rented out after first-come-first-served and 13% after a random selection. If you want to read more about how apartments have been rented out on HomeQ, read more in the HomeQ Report 2022.
HomeQ is Sweden's largest marketplace for first-hand rentals. We have partnership agreements with hundreds of private and municipal real estate companies that rent out their apartments directly via HomeQ. We make life easier for both housing seekers and housing companies and their rental agents.