Quarantined

We have had a rather strange start to our stay here in Iceland, because we have for all intends and purposes been quarantined for over a week due to a nasty stomach bug. So far Bjarki, Anna and now Finnur have gotten it, all about three days apart. A few other family members have also gotten it, so we’ve mostly restricted our travels to those. I now await my fate, and I won’t be in the clear until Thursday.

A side-effect of all this illness is that our search for housing has gone rather poorly. We’ve only gone to see three apartments that are for sale, and one that is for rent. We quite liked the one that is for rent, but the rent is high, and there are some issues that we would have to overcome (huge un-curtained windows in a funny shape, furniture may not all fit, not a lot of storage space etc.). We’ve been emailing the landlord, but things are progressing slowly (hello stomach bug!).

As it happens, there is a huge uproar brewing in the real-estate market because car-loans tied to foreign currencies were recently deemed illegal, meaning their astronomical increase after the economy came crashing down will get scaled back. Most people now expect housing-loans tied to foreign currencies to also be deemed illegal so everything is up in the air. And just yesterday a report surfaced where some fancy-pancy bank-analysts predicted a huge drop in house-prices (which are admittedly very high)… all of which is a looong way of saying perhaps buying right now isn’t such a hot idea.

Which in turn brings us to the rental market. Oh boy, what a sorry state the rental market is in. First off there are not a whole lot of properties even on the market. Mostly the stuff that’s on there is too small for us, or out in the boondoggles. Well, nothing here is really ‘boondoggles’ (on a US scale) but I’d really love being in the same neighborhood as the university. I’m now assuming that’s not going to happen, but at this time we’re somewhat limited to just Reykjavik since Bjarki starts daycare later this month – and I’d rather not lose that spot since I start in August.

All in all, it’s been a rather unproductive stay so far, and I’m low on reserves. So, if anybody happens to be reading this that knows of a good place with 3 to 4 bedrooms for rent, please leave a message!