AS HENRY FORD might have said, you can have a house in Sweden in any colour you like, as long as it’s red. This red paint is almost as old as the Vikings. It contains copper and iron oxide and was brought from the copper mines by women who were then often hired to paint the wooden buildings. As Sweden’s population grew richer in the 19th and 20th centuries, people began to build wooden summer houses, known as sommarstugor, for the notoriously short summer. Red is the most popular colour, although yellow – a modern innovation, introduced less than 100 years ago – has begun to creep in.

Tony Barrett left New Malden, Surrey, more than 40 years ago with a vague notion to move to Canada or Australia, but ended up in Sweden. “Swedes love sailing, rowing, even swimming if they can face the cold water,” he says. His wife is Swedish and he has settled on a small island in the Stockholm archipelago, less than an hour’s boat ride from the capital. The archipelago stretches about 40 miles eastwards from the city and contains 24,000 islands (many no more than a rock and a tree), so there is plenty of scope for development. However, the Archipelago Foundation, set up to preserve the landscape, is busy buying all the land it can and fighting plans to develop new properties.

Barrett, pictured right with his wife, Ewy, built his home almost entirely on his own, having bought the land in 1973 for £8,000. It is a 1½acre site with a view across the water to Vaxholm, one of the archipelago’s largest towns. “For the first few years we just camped or stayed in the little hut,” he says. “Ten years later Ewy was posted abroad, so I had time to start work on the place.” It is a timber-framed building with a tiled roof. Everything had to be brought by boat, which added a further 10 per cent to the cost. There is a tiled stove, underfloor heating and a small conservatory. Electricity and telephone lines come from the mainland, while water is provided from a 70-metre borehole. There is a septic tank, which is emptied by boat. Barrett estimates that the house probably cost him about Kr400,000 (£30,000) to build, not including labour. Now it is worth about Kr3 million.

Most people abandon their summer houses in the autumn and return to the cities, but the Barretts live in theirs all year round. They enjoy the peace and quiet and the sight of elk, which swim ashore from the mainland.

Do they have any complaints? “You used to be able to walk to the mainland in the winter when it froze over,” Barrett says. “But now they have opened a shipping lane that they keep open all year round. The other problem is that it doesn’t get properly cold any more.”

Anthony Scott, who comes from Bristol but is now based in Stockholm, has bought a house in the outer archipelago on an island called Ladna. He points out that the popular image of Sweden as a place that is expensive and inhospitable is wrong. “Even some of the most pernicious taxes, such as the wealth tax and property tax, are being shelved,” he says. There are natural hazards such as mosquitoes and midges, which appear in the summer months, but they are worse the farther north you go.

“The summer, when it finally arrives, is heavenly,” says Scott. “Especially if you have fair skin, as I do. Here the only place you are likely to break out into a sweat is in the sauna.” Scott spent more than a year looking for the right place. “I wanted to have my own beach, to be somewhere with good ferry connections, to have a good view, and I wanted there to be a shop on the island,” he says.

His beachfront property – a main house and smaller guest cottage – cost about Kr4 million three years ago. “I suspect it is worth more than that now,” he says. “But frankly I don’t care. I am staying put.” People like the archipelago because even though it is deserted – even in the summer – it is within striking distance of Stockholm. That is why well-known Swedes such as Ingemar Stenmark, the skier, and Elin Nordegren, the wife of Tiger Woods, have houses in the archipelago, as do Bjorn Borg, pictured below, the five-times Wimbledon champion, and members of Abba.

Wherever you go in Sweden you have a chance of buying a place on the water – there are some 95,000 lakes, covering nearly 10 per cent of the country. Barry Fowler and his Swedish wife, Anna, bought a red timber-clad house overlooking Lake Stora Hallsjon in Bergslagen, central Sweden, some 180 miles west of Stockholm. “It is a lovely wooded area: there are lakes everywhere and we go boating most days,” Fowler says. “By English standards the house was a steal. We paid Kr1 million for it a year ago. There are wood floors throughout, a sauna and three bedrooms. We plan to spend most of our summers here. We fly to Stockholm, then rent a car.”

But how easy is it for Britons to buy property in Sweden? As easy as it is for a Swede. Banks will lend up to 75 per cent of the value of the property. With a freehold property there is a general viewing, normally on a weekend. Then on Monday you are invited to place your bid, and a decision on the winner is announced later that week. However, you can still pull out even if your bid is successful, because a bid does not commit you to buying the property. Gazumping is also allowed, but happens only rarely in Stockholm. If all goes well and you are successful, all that remains for you to do is choose your favourite colour for a paint job. What’s it to be, then – red or yellow?

Fancy a bolthole in Stockholm? Search our database of foreign properties at: timesonline.co.uk/overseasproperty

FACTFILE

There are no restrictions on foreign ownership in Sweden.

The buyer must apply for deeds of title within three months of the sale transfer.

Stamp duty is charged at 1 per cent of the purchase price.

You pay an annual property tax of 1.5 per cent based on a valuation by the local council. New homes or renovated homes are exempt for at least five years. This tax will be abolished in 2008 and will be replaced with a community tax.

Wealth tax is charged at 1.5 per cent of taxable amounts in excess of Kr800,000 (£60,000).

To search propertyfinder.com for houses in Sweden, click here

Find properties for sale in Stockholm on properazzi.com by clicking here

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