My Dutch Dream

If I want to live in Amsterdam then I will need a place to live. I’ve been living in London (another major city) for 8 years now so I know the lay of the land here pretty well and the protocol for finding a place to rent but I am pretty clueless when it comes to Amsterdam.

Something that a lot of people tell me often is “there’s a shortage of housing in Amsterdam”. This seems to be quite a cliche and seems a strange statement to me. A shortage? It makes it sound like there are people living on the streets because they can’t find a place to live.

The truth is not quite this. All this statement means is that prices are high in Amsterdam – you pay a lot for what you get. Well, I can quite easily say the same thing about London and other major capital cities that I have lived in.

One thing I have on my side is that I intend to work from home using a laptop and USB broadband internet dongle. I may also have to do some casual work (ideally in a coffeeshop) or other “horeca” work. More on my income generating plans later. But the point is that I will only need a room and not an entire one bedroom flat.

So my plan is to intially stay in a cheap hostel for less than 30 Euros per night and quickly find accommodation after. I could try to find something before moving out but that would mean going out and searching then coming back and tieing up my loose ends on this side. I think it would be better for me to tie my loose ends and then start afresh once I get out there.

Oh, and people always talk about Amsterdam but I’m in a bit of a dilemma – should I stay in Amsterdam or live elsewhere. I have heard good things about Utretch, for example. Still an “expensive” city, but cheaper than Amsterdam, has a large young population due to it being a student town and possible is more “Dutch” than Amsterdam. As I know well from living in London, avoid capital cities if you want to know what a country is really like. I hear that Amsterdam is even worse in this regard. But then I might prefer the Amsterdam “experience”. Decisions, decisions….

Anyway, I found a great post on Yahoo Answers about how to find a place to live in The Netherlands. I am going to quote excerpts of it here, just in case the page disappears overnight!

Amsterdam.info
Directwonen
Direct Living
Funda.nl
KamerNet
Expatica

Classifieds
Viavia
Marktplaats
Speurders

Agencies
Yellow Pages

Moving to Amsterdam for the year and will need to find an apartment—any suggestions on where to look?