Have been looking for an apartment in #amsterdam for quite a while, and recently it's been a crazy market here – 50 people registering for viewings within seconds, and students having a hard time finding even a room.
A thread on how to find something good and possibly cheap.
twitter.com/0xRaduan/status/1547179938926804992?s=20&t=BUtWLEBaQQtx8z4cwHxn4w
Typically, there are 3 different use-cases for finding long-term apartments right now:
* You are a student and need an affordable room in Amsterdam
* You are a professional with a contract but also looking for a room
* You are looking for a whole apartment
1. For students, my best advice is to:
* find other students and try to go for one big apartment
* Possibly explore opportunities outside of Amsterdam if you have a tight budget
* Best places to search – Facebook groups, your diaspora communities
2. For professionals, who are looking for a room, there are 2 options, depending on their contract and income size – renting a 2+ bedroom apartment and subletting rooms/finding roommates or trying to find a room themselves.
Ideally, you want to be in a position of power and choose with whom you want to live, so the first option is an excellent one, however, in case you don't have enough funds to rent out the whole apartment, make sure to prepare a one-pager pdf with info about you(with a picture!)
3. In case you want to rent the whole apartment, it mostly depends on the next variables:
* how long have you been in NL already?
* Do you want a furnished or unfurnished apartment
In case you have just arrived here and don't really have much time to find an apartment, choosing a private-owned property is a good choice.
The best resource here is the t.me/accommomate_bot
Now, if you are looking not for your first apartment or have some buffer of time and are okay with unfurnished options then I would say the best bet you can make is to go for big companies.
Here is the list of companies in the Netherlands:
* vesteda.com/nl
* ikwilhuren.nu/
* vbtverhuurmakelaars.nl/
* vanderlinden.nl/
Best thing about those companies? Renting from them is 25-40% cheaper, and you typically don't need big deposits(1-2-3 rents)
I myself have found an apartment through vanderlinden.nl/ and it was very quick and very professional.
Here is the new area I am moving to.
With Vanderlinden, once you know the algorithm of steps to do in order to apply for apartments on the website, getting the viewing is quite straightforward – a friend of mine after hearing the algorithm, got a viewing and is thinking of renting an apartment in 4 days.
Quick algorithm for it:
1. Register on the website and upload all documents you have at the moment(they require a lot of documents, but make sure to upload as much as you can)
2. Apply for properties you like...
3. Once you applied to them, give them a call and ask them to move you forward with those apartments.
4. In the meantime, go and collect all the documents you need
5. Make sure to give them calls once in a while to check in your situation with application...
6. Once they will perform all the checks, they will put you into the queue – in my experience only handful of people get there – for few apartments that were up for 1-2 weeks I was 2nd or 1st in a row
7. Once you are first in a row, you will get an email stating that...
8. From now on, all you have to do is to perform a viewing. Nice thing about it is that they allow only one person at a time – this means that there are no other people besides you going for an apartment.
9. Then they perform a credit check – just a validation of the documents
10. After viewing it takes 2 days 🤯 to sign the contract...
11. Then they will transfer you keys and you are the owner of this apartment.
Bonus: You don't have to pay any deposits
In general my experience with them was outstanding
Finally, if you are a lazy person, who wants to spend some extra money and wishes another person finds an apartment for them – there is an option for finding a makelaar. Typically, they ask you for 1 month rent as a fee for finding you an apartment.
Bad thing about most of the makelaars is that they typically just search the most popular websites(like funda.nl or pararius.com and don't really want to bother much with anything else).
I myself can recommend next makelaar: facebook.com/renamsterdam
Even though we paused our search a while ago, my experience with them was not like with other makelaars, and over the past months I see them delivering high quality apartments with good prices.
All in all, housing seems like a very broken industry here, in Amsterdam. I hear from my friends across the globe, that it's not only the case here, but also in other major cities.
I wonder what will be the next developments in the housing market in Europe and across the globe.