Searching, renting and subletting house in Netherlands

Two ways you can find a house in the Netherlands apart from buying a house. Rent a house or sublet a house. Will discuss about subletting later. Renting a house most of the times requires you to sign a contract a for a minimum term of 6 months or 1 year before which you cannot legally terminate the contract or you need to pay the full amount for the full term even if you leave the house much before your contract officially terminates. Regarding the cost of housing and other types of living costs, please check the cost of living video and the Quora Blog. Prices range between 350 - 700 eur depending on the type of house, private or shared accomodation, apartment, furnished or furnished, location. Furnished houses are around 100 eur more than the unfurnished ones per month. But, convenient for students coming for the first time to Netherlands at least in the first year. Because, furnished houses have everything right from the furniture, mattresses, bed, toiletry, utilities, internet, everything that you need initially to settle in a new home. Shared accommodations are most of the times cheaper than the private ones. Houses 2 - 3 km far away from city centre are always 50-100 Eur cheaper than the houses in proximity to the city centre. For students, sometimes each university has tie-up with the local organizations and you can find housing via them. Normally your house might be very close to the university campus but there is no tradition of on-campus housing or hostels like other countries in the Netherlands!

Now, let’s focus on the main thing that everyone was asking again and again: paying the rent and searching for the house. Rent is generally paid in advance each month and a lump sum payment of first month’s rent, last month’s rent and a security money equivalent to one month’s rent is very common when signing the contract. Beware of paying the rent in cash which is always fraud as it is untraceable! Beware of frauds when looking for house which might be difficult to spot but some signs are that the property should be viewable with room photos and try to do a background check on the person or organization via Google or LinkedIn. A link is enclosed below with some description of how to spot rental frauds. Will try to make a short video on it later! Before paying a huge amount try to verify as much as possible. Different Facebook groups in your locality will help a lot initially to find a house if you do not choose the housing from the university. All the links are enclosed below in the description. Also, the links for the websites and rental brokers are enclosed below in the description. My personal favourites that have helped me a lot to find houses are pararius.nl, funda.nl, easymakelaars.nl, kamernet.nl.

Finally, when you sublet the house then it is like a person temporarily rents you the house which he was renting from a tenant. So, may be sometimes when someone goes for a short study abroad program or internship then they sublet the house for a short period of 6 months to 1 year or even longer. Before subletting, try to ask for all the identity proof like the valid contract and the passport scan of the person from whom you rent the house before you also handover your identity proof copy to him. Also make sure that you can register the sublet house in your local municipality so that you are legally staying in the Netherlands with a valid address for that duration. If you cannot register then you stay at your own risk. Sometimes people choose this without registration option when they come from abroad to Netherlands for a short internship of 2 - 3 months. Normally during sublet you might need to pay the first and last month’s rent in advance and then you can pay rest of the rent in 1 month advance. Always remember the same rule of not paying the rent via cash and doing digital transaction to have proof if something happens later!

Finally getting any type of house in Netherlands is always one of the hardest things even harder than finding a job because of rising international student population. So, plan well in advance!

Rental fraud link:

https://www.tudelft.nl/en/education/practical-matters/housing/rental-frauds/

Housing organizations:

https://www.tudelft.nl/en/education/practical-matters/housing/organisations-and-platforms/

Other housing websites:

https://kamernet.nl/en

https://www.pararius.nl/

https://www.funda.nl/

https://www.housinganywhere.com/

https://rentslam.com/en/

Rental brokers:

https://www.easymakelaars.nl/