Finding Housing in the Netherlands
When I knew for sure that I was going to be studying abroad for seven months in the Netherlands, my first reaction was excitement, followed immediately by angst. I had no idea how to navigate an entire country worth of rules and regulations, especially when it came to arranging housing. However, after a lot of time and research, I feel confident sharing my findings on how to successfully nail down lodging in the Netherlands using the following tips:
Know the inquiry period when searching for a place
Normally in America, if you want to find a place to live, you have to start the search months in advance. Well that’s not the case in the Netherlands. In fact, the search period for a home is just one month for the Dutch. I know, I was shocked too! It seems so risky, especially coming from a place where moving preparation takes tons of planning.
When a Dutch tenant’s lease is up, they give one month’s notice to real estate agencies, giving the agency that month to find a new tenant for the property. This makes searching for a place next to impossible until you reach the one month mark prior to your departure to the Netherlands. So you can see why this was such a stressful process for me. I knew months before I left for the Netherlands that I’d need to find a place, but I couldn’t secure housing until a measly 4 weeks before my flight out of the States.
Just bear that in mind when you are looking for a place to call home - you can inquire and poke a real estate agency as much as you want about a property that interests you but, the fact is, if you aren’t prepared to move into that place next month, you won’t get it.
Find a good agency
The most important aspect to any company is its reviews. That rule applies to real estate agencies as well, so I eliminated any agencies that were not widely commended by the locals. From there, I looked into the agency fees. Every agency has its own fee system that they charge you when they’ve helped you find a place. These fees can range widely so it’s best to get in touch with each company and get their ballpark amount.
Something I also found tricky was that agencies will not just provide you with an English-translated rental agreement. They can actually charge you for it. One place I worked with wanted to charge me over $100 for a translated copy! No thank you, I have it on good authority that Google Translate can do that job for free.
Keep an eye on the utilities
A nice perk of housing in the Netherlands is that utilities are sometimes included in the rent. When searching for housing, you’ll see either “incl.” or “excl.” next to the rental pricing or in the property description. It took me awhile to figure out that these two abbreviations are actually referring to whether the rent amount “includes” or “excludes” the price of utilities. Knowing this changed the way I hunted for a place to live. Of course I wanted to avoid paying additional utility costs if I didn’t have to. I began narrowing my search for places that only included utilities and I am so glad I did. I don’t think I could have figured out how to handle housing in addition to doling out time and money for gas, water, and electric.
The Realtor.com of the Netherlands
It took me forever to find a good real estate site to use for my housing search. But when I finally did, the hunt for a place to live could not have been easier. The site I am referring to is called Pararius and it's akin to the American Realtor.com in the way that it takes listings from individual agencies and puts them all in one place so that you don’t have to navigate to every agent's page to see their respective posts. It’s a real time saver.
The site offers great features such as being able to filter between places that are furnished or unfurnished, etc. This was important to me because as a student visiting for only seven months, I didn’t want to have to spend the money to fully furnish a new place when I would inevitably be leaving.
And when you find a place that piques your interest, you simply scroll down to the bottom of the property description to find the agency that it was listed through so that you can get in touch with them directly.
Don’t sign anything without reading it. Seriously.
Because there was a language barrier between me and the Dutch real estate agency I used, any of the documents they sent me for signature were prone to being slightly inaccurate, prompting me to read through them thoroughly before giving my John Hancock. And I’m thankful I did. On more than one occasion, they’d skewed the dates of my arrival and departure from the property. If I had signed, I would have been agreeing to pay for rent for a year and a half instead of the desired seven months!
You might be thinking “Of course you should read through things before signing them!” And I know that. But when documents run into the double-digit page count, my eyes start to glaze over. And I know yours do too. But really, despite how long the documents are, read every line, make notes where you have questions, and don’t be afraid to correct anything before sending the documents back to the agent.
Find the closest IKEA
IKEA is such a great resource for finding affordable and simple furnishings to add some extra flare to a home. Since I was on a limited budget in a new rental that needed just a few homey touches, IKEA was a godsend. And thankfully, there was one located just a quick 15-minute train ride away from my new apartment. I highly recommend mapping out the closest IKEA because they really are everywhere in Europe and it's a great resource if there's one near you.
It may seem completely overwhelming to try and find housing in the Netherlands when you're still trying to get your head wrapped around the fact that you're moving abroad in the first place. But with these helpful tips, the process doesn't have to be a scary one. So long as you take small steps towards your move and keep in mind that everything will work itself out in the end, you'll do just fine and settle in quickly. Happy travels!