Finding an A’dam apartment
If apartment-hunting were a sport, I would be an Olympian. I would be a gold medalist. This is when my obsessive-perfectionist-data-fiend tendencies really shine. And if your living situation (space, amenities, and/or location) is really important to you, these are the characteristics you need to find an apartment in Amsterdam.
Tom’s company gifted us the services of a housing consultant as part of the relocation package, and we found them to be, shall we say, less customer-service-oriented than we expected. Here’s how the first conversation went:
Us: It’s really, really important to us that we have a garden, even a small one. We have two huge dogs.
Them: You have dogs? This will be difficult.
Us: We’re willing to compromise on basically everything else, and we’re willing to overpay.
Them: This may not be possible.
They also told us that leases only start the first of the month, so it’s impossible to move in anywhere mid-month – which turned out not to be true. The last straw: They tried to limit our search by taking us to see only a few apartments that happened to be viewable on a single afternoon the consultant could make themselves available. They said, “That’s how we do things here.” I felt like they were taking advantage of my expat newbie-ness, and that’s when I mentally removed this person from my life and decided I would find a place myself.
(1) Where I searched
Funda.nl became my new favorite website. (You can also use Pararius if you like their interface better, but Funda is where most homes are posted.) I scoured that thing on the daily in the months before our move, and continued once we landed here. I think this is a really important step because it helped me understand what was common, what styles of apartments were available in which neighborhoods, etc. And when I did see something I liked, I KNEW it was The One because it outshined the thousands of places I had scoped out on the website.
(2) How I negotiated
You can reach out to property owners/managers directly through Funda to ask questions (pet-acceptance is not always clear in the listing) and set up viewing appointments. Per my previous paragraph, I knew when I had found The One, so after viewing it I started negotiating over WhatsApp with the property manager. This is the part where we might have colored outside the lines a bit. Our unhelpful consultant thought it quite unorthodox, the way we were making promises over text about lease dates and deposits, and she wanted everything to go through her.
But I think our eagerness and responsiveness is what got us the place (that and being willing to pay a hefty pet deposit). We did engage the services of the housing consultant to review the lease agreement, as it was written in Dutch. This seemed like the right move (though they did still charge Tom’s employer a €4,000 fee for their quite limited service).
(3) How we got pet approval
A note about pets: There is an urban legend that it’s not legal to reject a potential tenant because of their pets, which is why you won’t see pet restrictions on most listings. But in practice, I’m guessing most landlords have their choice of tenants in housing-starved Amsterdam, so they avoid the pet owners. We paid our way out of this problem. So yes … the money.
(4) What and how we paid
Our rent and utilities is about the same as our mortgage for our last house in Seattle. For certain locations and square footage in Amsterdam, a few thousand a month is not totally out of bounds. It’s possible to find something WAY cheaper than that, but it comes down to what you want/need/are willing to pay for. I think our place is so spendy not only because it’s in a great location on an outdoor market, but it’s large (spacious kitchen, three proper bedrooms), was recently renovated, and has a sizeable garden.
At the time of signing, we had to transfer the equivalent of three months’ rent to the owner’s account: the first month’s rent, plus a pet deposit that equaled two months of rent. Like, I said, hefty. In addition to signing the lease, we also had to sign an agreement about utilities. I think this will vary by apartment, but our set-up was to pay the property owner a flat fee for the first six months, then there would be an adjustment based on usage and current energy prices. When that period passed, we had a new, higher flat fee – still paid directly to the property owner.
Also! There are taxes! Even if you rent! You will get a letter in the mail from the municipality telling you to go online and pay an annual tax. Get out your Google Translate app and read carefully, because there are penalties if you don’t pay on time. I think our tax was around €300.
Paying rent is quite easy – we just auto-transfer directly to our landlord’s account each month. No paper checks in the Netherlands since 2020!
(5) What I learned
If I could do it over, the only thing I’d change is paying more attention at the walk-through. I met the property manager and housing consultant at the apartment to get the keys, and we walked through the place together, taking note of existing damage. This was also the time that they explained how things worked: appliances, radiators, window latches. I wish that Tom had joined me and/or I took better notes. We were lucky that our appliances were all new (we were the first tenants, post-renovation), and the owner left a whole binder of instruction manuals. But I still don’t understand how the thermostat works.
P.S. Most of our stuff (including furniture) didn’t arrive for weeks after we “moved in,” so we used rental furniture, and Tom’s company covered the cost. Highly recommend Re-Place for this. You can pick and choose what you want, and the team who does the drop-off and pick-up is profesh. They even set up a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table.