The first leg of my Amsterdam living, is to find an apartment. And that’s where I have been the last week - house hunting in the Venice of the North. Before I got there, I had all these dreams of sitting in a nice balcony on a sunday morning, sipping coffee and gazing dreamily towards a beautiful canal. But guess what! unless, I suddenly discovered a rich aunt, that was going to be highly improbable. Even if I had the money to pay for it, getting an apartment that overlooks a canal, WITH a parking space where I don’t have to walk a mile to get to my place - that’s just plain impossible! Yes, apparently, people here don’t think much about paying 300 Euros for a garage space that is about 10 minutes walk to your place. And I wanted to live in a place that was 10 minutes walk to my work! Ah! The naiveté of foreigners!
The first two days of our apartment hunting was just d-e-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g! The best I could have said about those two days was that I must have lost at least a kilo! Haven’t you heard about Dutch stairs? They are steep, almost vertical and seem to go on forever. And at the end of this Himalayan climb, you get to see an apartment, which is well, ancient! Just because the apartment building was built in the 1800s, doesn’t mean the furniture can’t be new! That’s the sad part, most apartments here come furnished. Looking for an unfurnished apartment here significantly reduces the options. And it’s not like these places come cheap. Furniture or no furniture, the price remains the same.
Anyways, on day 3, we gave up our dreams of apartments with canal views and decided to also see apartments with furniture (let me not think of the selling spree I will have to go through, to get rid of our existing furniture!). The day started well, coz we found our dream house - the very first one we saw on Wednesday - both of us loved it the moment we stepped in and we knew that this was it! Ok, it was slightly beyond our budgets and what we could reasonably afford, but oh what the heck! Budgets are meant to be readjusted! A lovely two bedroom place in shiki miki Old South! They say the best way to assess a neighbourhood is to check out the parked cars - I have feeling that the car I hope to get is gonna significantly reduce the glam of our Oud Zuid neigbhourhood. It was just as well that we saw this dream-apartment, coz after that we were again subjected to depressing apartment after another, and stairs followed by more stairs. But I couldn’t care less!
So, for anyone looking for a place in Amsterdam, heres a few tips:
1) Get a makelaar (agent), if you are a foreigner. It’s just easier. Give them clear instructions on what you need, and they will arrange a day of house viewings for you. And the going rate for commissions is one month’s rent+19% VAT.
2) If you want to save that one month’s rent and you have the luxury of time, try and find a makelaar who gets commission from the landlord. In many cases, apartments are listed with several agencies. If you go through the agency where the landlord pays the commission, you save on that.
3) Know what you want, or you will end up wasting precious time. So, here’s some info:
RENT:
Some average prices (based purely on my experience), for a good location:
A one-bedroom (about 60 sqm) will set you back by about EUR 1200-1500 a month and a small two bedroom (less than 80 sqm, where the 2nd room is more of a study than an actual bedroom) will be between EUR 1400-1700 a month. A larger two bedroom (80 - 110sqm) will be between EUR 1500 - 2000 per month.
PARKING:
If you don’t need parking, prices might be slightly less than above. If you need parking, remember to specify that - waiting lists to get a parking permit in the city centre is about 3 to 4 years. And a private garage (which may or may not be near your home) could cost an additional EUR 200-400 a month.
LOCATIONS:
Centrum and Oud Zuid (Old South) are great places to live. Centre, because it’s full of life and you might get a place on a gracht, overlooking one of the canals. But parking is a nightmare. Even if you somehow manage to get past the 3 year parking permit queue, finding a spot everyday might turn out to be difficult. Oud Zuid - well, we are gonna live there. So, hopefully it’s nice. Or, so I am told. You will hear more about it in the coming months.
Pijp (which, btw, is slang for Penis in Dutch) is an upcoming area in Amsterdam. As are the islands, which are not really islands anymore, because now there are good roads that connect them to the rest of Amsterdam. Apparently, a lot of young urban folks are moving there. But somehow, the houses don’t look very Amsterdamish - they are not a few centuries old, with high ceilings that have delicate, albeit broken, decorative work on the ceilings, and super narrow vertical stairs. Pijp has parking problems, though. The island has a character of its own, and even though the prices are lower, it just seemed far away because it’s on an island. In real driving distance, I don’t think it’s too far from the center - and I could have got a water taxi everyday to work!To each his own.
Of course, if you want to live in the suburbs, there must be a lot of options, of which I know nothing. The farthest we got to was Amstelveen and even that seemed far away!
4) Almost everything is negotiable. The owner might just surprise you by knocking off EUR 300 from the asking price, though EUR 100 is more the norm. Point is, don’t forget to ask - the worst he can say is no!
More about apartment hunting in Amsterdam in this article, which says:
In short, deciding to live in Amsterdam – or indeed, any place in the world that so many people find so charming – is not for the faint of heart, and not for the casual visitor.
At least, its not just me!
