Zosia goes to university

Zosia was keen to study outside of Poland and the UK and the Netherlands were considered. Thanks to Brexit the cost of universities in the UK rose considerably, even for someone with a British passport like her and they weren’t really offering a lot for it, so the focus was on the Netherlands. She applied and was accepted by both Erasmus University Rotterdam and by Amsterdam University for two different courses in each. In the end she chose to study a three-year International Bachelor in Psychology at Erasmus.

Aside from all the other considerations, this meant finding somewhere for her to live in Rotterdam, starting late August. Luckily, and partly by design, her boyfriend of 2 years, Iwo, had been accepted a year earlier to study art at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam and they hoped to live together so we set out to make that happen.

The first thing you need to know about finding housing for students in Rotterdam, indeed the whole of the Netherlands, is that it is almost impossible. Google “student housing Netherlands” and the most common word in the results is “crisis”. Last year, the country was short of over 26,000 homes, meaning students had not found accommodation before starting their studies. Many were living in tents or shipping containers. Many others gave up and resigned from studying in the Netherlands, indeed universities told international students not to come unless they already had accommodation. Quite a number were tricked into paying considerable sums of money up-front only to find it was a scam and they had nowhere to live. Minefield! Quite how there can be such a disconnect between university intake and accommodation is hard to understand although it looks like something is finally happening – “In an effort to alleviate the student housing crisis, the Dutch government has introduced the National Student Housing Action Plan, aiming to build 60,000 affordable student homes between 2022 and 2030.”

Given the difficulty, it makes sense to start looking as early as possible, or does it? Firstly, you need to know whether you’ve been accepted for the course you’ve chosen. This might be provisionally known in March/April but will be dependent on them accepting your results from end of high school exams, ‘matura’ in Poland, which you won’t know until sometime in May. As most places offering accommodation expect you to sign at least a 12 month lease (often with no get-out options) it doesn’t matter how confident you are that your kid is going to pass with flying colours, you are taking quite a risk to sign such a lease before being certain. So, although we did some research beforehand, we got serious in early May.

There are a few types of accommodation available;

• On or near campus housing from the university – Erasmus can only accommodate about 25% of students (this is the norm) so this was already gone. Only single rooms anyway.
• Student housing/hotel provided by private developers – also very little available and was already gone. Only single rooms anyway.
• Rooms in shared houses – a very mixed bag. Not as much available as you might imagine because there are special regulations applying to such housing and most landlords can’t be bothered. You need to form your own student groups before applying and groups need to be of 3 or more = herding cats. No room sharing allowed.
• Private rental market – where we ended up after the three above were ruled out.

There are also a few ‘conditions’ applied by landlords which can significantly reduce the number of options for international students:

• Must be Dutch, have a job in the Netherlands, or at least have a Dutch bank account, but you can’t get a Dutch bank account without having a registered Dutch address = Dutch people only.
• Only Dutch guarantors allowed. As the kids have no income they need someone to guarantee payments, etc. In many cases, the landlords do not accept anything other than Dutch citizens as guarantors so, unless you have a friend or relative in the Netherlands who is prepared to take legal responsibility for everything, you’re screwed.
• Guarantors allowed from another EU country but not elsewhere – gave us an advantage over some students.
• Assortment of other requirements like being able to prove your income is X times more than the rent – not a problem for us but there’s a lot of paperwork involved; scans of passports, copies of bank accounts proving income, copies of employment contracts, references, explanatory letters, begging letters, ticking boxes…and almost all of this has to be done up-front, before you even get to do a viewing or be considered for anything.

As you have probably by now worked out, for every apartment there are plenty of people that want to rent it. From what we saw, I’d guess at least ten, probably more and it’s a mix of Dutch and international students as well as people moving to Rotterdam for work or just moving apartments within Rotterdam. It is VERY much what we’d say in the business is a ‘landlord’s market’. Because of that, there is no such thing as calling up an agent, telling them what you’re looking for and then sitting back and waiting for a list of options, selecting a few, doing viewings, choosing the one you want, negotiate a little, sign the lease. Oh no! Every agent is working for the landlords, not for you. For the most part, they don’t want to talk to you, see you, or waste much time on you. You have to check their website every hour of every day looking for new arrivals. If you see one you like, you need to IMMEDIATELY apply for a viewing and send them all the paperwork they want. If you delay by just a few hours, the applications for viewing will be closed and you’re out. You’re then waiting to see if you’ve been lucky enough to be selected to actually have a viewing from all those that applied. If you do get a viewing it will normally be in an ‘open house’ style with multiple people viewing at the same time, after which you are waiting to hear whether you are the one they have selected to actually offer the apartment to. If they do offer you the apartment you need to IMMEDIATELY complete any remaining paperwork and pay them the first month’s rent (irrespective of how far away the move-in date is), the deposit (another 1-3 month’s rent) and any fees that are applicable. You will also be required to sign the lease contract as well as numerous pages of associated rules and regulations. You will be very happy to do all this because it means you can stop spending half of every day going crazy hunting for accommodation and everyone can relax because you know your child will not be sleeping on the streets.

At the end of July, after a couple of stressful months, we got lucky. The kids went to Rotterdam for a week in mid-July in the hope that being there might help us find something. While they were there we managed to secure three viewings. One was a nasty place and the agent was basically doing the deal with another viewer while they were there, the second would not accept a guarantor outside of the Netherlands (although this was not made clear beforehand) and the third was really nice. A couple of weeks later I got a call from the agent saying we’d been chosen for the third apartment and it was ours as long as did the paperwork and paid the following day, which we did. Hurrah!

Zosia and Iwo’s apartment is great! It’s spacious, nearly 60 m2, with a lounge/kitchen/dining room, a balcony, a bedroom, bathroom, separate toilet and fiber-optic internet. The whole place has been done to a high quality. It’s on the first floor up narrow steep stairs but that’s very common in the Netherlands and a lot of other apartments are on even higher floors or in the attic space, which would get very annoying after a while. The building is from 1902 and is perfectly located in Kralingen, next-door to the centre of Rotterdam and half-way between Zosia’s and Iwo’s universities (10 minute bicycle ride), with tram right outside the door and metro, shops, etc, a very short walk away. There were only two wrinkles; first that it was not available until October 1st, and they started university a month earlier. This was solved thanks to a kind relation on Iwo’s side who lives in Rotterdam and was able to put them up for a month. It was not a perfect arrangement, but it worked. The second wrinkle was that it is unfurnished. It has fully-fitted kitchen and bathroom, it has curtains and light fittings but nothing else – no washing machine, no furniture so when we visited them to help with the handover and moving in, we spent a lot of quality time in Ikea to get the essentials. We also found a great place for excellent second-hand washing machines too! In the end everything went well – the handover was smooth, Ikea delivered everything we ordered, the ‘men with a van’ delivery from Warsaw turned up on time and the kids moved into their first home together!

So, how much does it cost? Well this is interesting because it doesn’t seem to matter what the accommodation is, the price is more or less €600-750 per person, per month. For renting a room somewhere, it’s the same price irrespective of the size, the quality of the building, the location, furnished or unfurnished. With apartments the same, a one bedroom apartment for two people, is double the ‘unit price’, meaning €1,200-1,500 a month whatever and wherever it is. There are a few exceptions, but not many. We are paying €1,350 a month plus utilities. Cost of utilities is quite flexible thanks to inflation and government subsidies but is roughly, per month; electricity & gas €200, water use €20, water taxes €13, trash disposal €30. Looking at what else is available for the same money, I’d say we’ve done very well.

While we were there, we took the opportunity to visit a few places in the Netherlands, as well as a week in Paris using the fast Thalys train connection. All in all, our ‘summer holiday’ for 2022 can be considered a success.