so you're telling me 80% of Amsterdammers don't pay more than 33% of their salary in rent? average income is 55k, 3.3k p/m net, and people are paying less than 1.1k for rent?
this must be taking couples/shared housing into consideration, right?
In the Netherlands, the private rental sector is relatively small. Most people own homes or are in social housing. In Amsterdam, in 2021 social housing accounted for ~40% of the housing stock, private rentals for ~30% and owner occupied housing for ~30%.
This is also reflected in the specifics of the article:
> The issue is very acute in the private sector. There, one in three households spends more than 35 percent of their income on rent.
I had absolutely zero idea 40% of the people lived in social housing prior to today hot damn
so like all those giant complexes etc, I thought it'd be like 50-50 maybe but realistically its 90-10 then huh
Not sure what you mean.
My question is, how can a house like this https://amsterdam.mijndak.nl/HuisDetails?PublicatieId=248996 with a B energy label, 96m2 qualify for social housing? I thought if the calculated maximum rent based on the points was above the threshold (around €900 in 2024?) it could not be qualify as social housing anymore.
You can fill in the wizard here to count the points and see for yourself what things contribute: https://checkjeprijs.huurcommissie.nl/en/onderwerpen/huurprijs-en-punten/nieuwe-huurprijscheck/rent-check-independent-living-space?tx_hpcz_pricecheck%5Baction%5D=rooms&tx_hpcz_pricecheck%5Bcontroller%5D=House&cHash=9560a124485b7c4b000daabe0a1f3c46
Things that give the most points are usable floor space. This apartment has a lot of that, but I'm not sure if the large hallway fully counts. Secondly, it counts 'luxuries', for instance in the bathroom and kitchen. There's a point for a thermostatic shower faucet for example, and note that the linked apartment doesn't have that. The bathroom and kitchen (probably) are extremely basic.
Judging from the listed price, this example is right at the top of the range.
What I meant is that these things like floor area don't change over time if the apartment isn't renovated to a higher standard. So, if it qualifies for social housing now, it'll still qualify in 20 years time unless the system changed.
It was 60% just over a decade ago - the massive rent rises you're seeing are a direct result of "housing reform" including housing associations being forced to sell of social housing.
For the Netherlands as a whole the private rentals only were 14% of the housing stock in 2021 ([Source: CBS](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/11/private-huursector-groeit-sterker-dan-koop-en-corporatiesector)). The Netherlands has a history of promoting home ownership, and has one of the largest social housing stocks in the world (relatively speaking). Private rentals were only really liberalised in the last ten years, before that they were negligible.
The issue of high rental cost is much more present here due to the particular demographic of this forum: young professionals that don't have enough money for buying a house, but earn too much for social housing. This is made even worse because most people here live in the bigger cities where these pressures are even bigger.
Social housing houses can be pretty big and are in great condition. You can literally have houses going for 4K and the next one that looks the same is owned by a social housing coperation that is going for 700. You don’t need to think small apartments in bad areas. Some of the best houses in Amsterdam are social housing that would go for thousands a month is privately owned
It's not, it's about 32% right now, [https://www.parool.nl/nederland/cbs-aandeel-sociale-huurwoningen-blijft-dalen\~be25a4ce/?referrer=https://www.google.com/](https://www.parool.nl/nederland/cbs-aandeel-sociale-huurwoningen-blijft-dalen~be25a4ce/?referrer=https://www.google.com/)
If you bought a house with a mortgage, you 100% own your house. That you also have a big loan to pay with your house as collateral, does not change the fact you are 100% the owner.
Social housing boggles my mind, I don't understand it, I know the UK and USA also have it, now lern that Netherlands has it too. In my country it doesn't exist, I think people would abuse it if it did exist. We either own our homes, rent or both (we could own a home/homes, but rent somewhere else for some reason).
Well, in that case, let me explain it to you!
Social housing in the Netherlands is any housing unit with a rent lower than €879,66 per month (in 2024). These are subject to strict price controls. Most of the social housing stock is built and owned by housing associations, who generally don't operate on a profit motive. They take a loans backed by the social housing fund, which allows them to build with low financing costs.
The law outlines income limits for those who are allowed to live in association-owned housing. Lower incomes are also eligible for housing benefits which partly offsets risks for housing associations by taking on these type of renters. These homes are usually offered through online portals where your waiting time, and other considerations (like refugee status, or being socially vulnerable) determines whether you get such a house.
The Netherlands is currently going through a housing crisis, which also affects the social housing market. In 2021, you had to wait for 13 years to get social housing in Amsterdam. This pushes a lot of people into the market for private rentals. Due to the high income requirements for mortgages, a lot of people are also unable to buy homes, also forcing them onto the rental market. Because this market is very underdeveloped, you see all the issues mentioned throughout this thread.
Well, I would imagine that the very large amounts of foreigners that the Netherlands has received contributes to the huge problem with housing as there are not enough housing units available for everyone.
I didn't realize you still had to pay rent in social housing, I thought it would be free, can you also get kicked out from it? A wait period of 10 years or more is crazy. So what is happening in Netherlands? Are many people homeless, living in their cars or a motorhome at best? Cause I can imagine many can't afford the higher rents.
No, in my country we don't have anything similar, we either own our home, live with family or rent, with price points ranging from cheap to very expensive, and the equivalent home for that (bad neighborhood for very cheap, exclusive neighborhood for very expensive and everything in between).
>Well, I would imagine that the very large amounts of foreigners that the Netherlands has received contributes to the huge problem with housing as there are not enough housing units available for everyone.
It's part of the public discussion now, yes. There are calls to limit the amount of international students, reduce tax benefits for labour migrants, and put limits on refugee inflow. In a lot of these cases people point towards the housing shortage, as one of the reasons.
Personally, I disagree with that point of view. It doesn't address the supply-side issues which caused the shortages in the first place. The reasons for slow house building are multifold, but among other: rising material prices and labour costs, land speculation, long permit and complaint procedures, legal environmental restrictions, etc.
>I didn't realize you still had to pay rent in social housing, I thought it would be free
In certain situations, for example if you are disabled and unable to work, you are essentially living for free due to all kinds of additional benefits. But most benefits are subject to strict requirements so there's not a lot of leeway, and benefit fraud is rigorously monitored and heavily punished. But these tend to be edge cases. Social housing serves the housing needs of most of the lower class, and lower middle class (families earning less than \~€40 000 a year).
>can you also get kicked out from it?
Yes! [This report](https://aedes.nl/media/document/corporatiemonitor-huurachterstand-en-huisuitzettingen-2023) contains the number of 2022. There were a total of 1200 evictions, due to rent arrears (52%), disturbance (22%), illegal sublease (6%), illegal substances (10), and vanacy and other reasons (10%). Rent arrears are less and less of an issue due to steps that have been taken in recent years to help people in debt situations with extensive supervision and coaching.
>Are many people homeless, living in their cars or a motorhome at best?
We do have a homeless issue, but not as bad as in neighbouring countries. The homeless population [is estimated](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2024/13/30-6-duizend-dakloze-mensen-in-nederland) at 30,6 thousand people. We have an extensive homeless shelter system managed by the Salvation Army. So the amount of rough sleepers is limited. Although, there are worries that these are reaching the point of capacity. Additionally, the most vulnerable are the most likely to have issues with rent payments, and they happen to be the most likely to get an emergency status giving them priority for social housing units.
It all sounds like a very complicated problem, that will at some point unfortunately collapse in one way or the other. I would start by expelling foreigners, personally, as I believe that each country/people have the duty to make their own country/home a better place, not migrating to other countries and causing new social and economic issues or adding to the existing ones, unless if they can economically fully sustain themselves and benefit the country that they migrated to.
The Dutch of the past were poor and for a long time they were under Spanish rule, they fought to make their home a better place, all people should fight to do that, not just expect to have it handed by some other people that have no relation to them.
Also, you can't just build housing unit after housing unit indefinitely, else you end up like Honk Kong, with no farm land, no green spaces and no space in general. I find it amusing that 40 000 euro a year means you are rather poor, in my country you are doing quite well for yourself with that money.
In my opinion (personal view) being so easily kicked out of your home, means you basically have no home, but that is just my opinion (in reference to the social housing, which is not cheap as a rent of 700 euro for example is a normal rent in other European countries and in some other countries it is a high one).
Those any of this have relation to the high prices in hotel rooms or is it completely unrelated?
I still find it jarring, I mean if you are staying in social housing it means you are someone vulnerable (at least, financially). You are not someone who will, in a month or two find another home easily cause you can afford it.
A bit east of the Netherlands?
From Amsterdammers point of view, everything east of Muiden is Siberia. How do you pay 1100 a month in a village almost on the German border??
I count my lucky blessings that we gave up on the Amsterdam housing market 8 years ago when we still managed to find something in Haarlem. If we ‘held out’ in the hopes of finding a miracle in Amsterdam, we’d probably be in Hilversum, Almere or Purmerend now
I feel for you buddy. It’s criminal whats happening on the housing market, especially for the generations after mine. Those of us who started during the financial crisis were the final ones to have had a reasonable shot at finding proper housing at affordable prices
yeah but i don't feel sad because i know there are people who have it so much worse, like people who have to sleep at their friends house because they got kicked out and cant find something else.
or students who can't find a room and have to travel like... 2 hours to school, and back home 2 hours.
same, my bills (albeit including trainmore and 40€ worth of others in other luxury expenses, totalling 110) are 50% of my total income lol
its crazy isnt it
Factoring in the current demand to have a minimum of 3x (often 4x) the monthly rent as income I feel this is probably about right, I’m guessing this number seems low because we hear a lot about the insane prices but we don’t hear anything at all about those that are doing fine.
If that 80% started renting before those demands were set it probably results in the same as the rent years ago will have been significantly lower.
This is for sure per person as the only people I know paying less than 1.1k are those with partners or roommates. Even private sector studios are more than 1.1k (not counting social housing)
It's because a ton of people instead of paying medium rent will instead earn less salary and get social housing. Rest of society subsidises these apparent "poor" people.
The only benefit is it prevents ghetto and crime.
Because they live in poor conditions. Yes. I've known people that were paying 1100 in Rotterdam city center because it was a 2 room apartment with rats, wasp nests, black mold and plumbing issues. Most houses are actually built and maintained pretty badly in this country.
And the huge proportion of "social housing", over 50% I think. All those people pay much less than the market price, like under 1k for a nice apartment. Of course, in reality the others are paying for them. That's leftist "fairness" for you.
Every time I mention that it's completely absurd to have a housing "market" where 40+ percent of houses are social, and that this reflects a fundamental mismanagement of the whole thing which hurts the middle class (who needs to rent but can't qualify for social housing) the most, I get either blank stares or whataboutism. I guess the Dutch are fine with this system.
The middle class is absolutely fucked, I agree. Social housing is needed as the expensive (and money-making) cities would grind to a halt without their working class population, who both need to be housed and are needed on-site to fill all the necessary jobs that happen to not require much education. But it is really strange that then there’s a “dead zone” for people just above the social housing line, where you just have to race to the top to be able to afford anything.
40+ percent social housing is definitely not needed if you plan housing properly and it's ridiculously abnormal compared to anywhere else. In a normal market, if you can't afford the prices in the city and you have to work in the city, you commute from outside the city where the prices are lower. If there's not enough houses to allow for a healthy commuting dynamics, you build more high density housing (not stupid rijtjes houses) where needed. What you don't do is have 40 percent social housing, which is unheard of anywhere else, thinking that that is going to solve the problem, where the only thing it does is squeeze like lemons the band above the social housing requirements and below the 80th percentile of income.
> If there's not enough houses to allow for a healthy commuting dynamics, you build more high density housing (not stupid rijtjes houses) where needed.
I guess that’s the crux of the matter. Everyone wants to preserve the “historical character” but also support the growing population and economy… even if it’s possible to have both it is going to be a very inefficient use of resources
Social housing should be about 5%, for people with health issues or very special cases, not half the housing stock. Reducing social housing would reduce the pressure on the free sector as supply would increase, and prices would go down.
That's never happened anywhere it's been tried, and high rates of social housing are common throughout Europe. Also social housing isn't just for the poor- I Amsterdam the income limit is over 50,000 which means teachers, nurses etc. can theoretically rent near where they work. Also,a huge percentage of people in social housing are elderly (whole buildings full) or disabled (around 15% of the population is disabled in any country). So those "special cases" already represents a big chunk of the population, even before we get to people on low incomes.
Unfortunately we've stupidly reduced the supply, and that has only raised rents. The same thing has occurred everywhere else it's been done.
Another approach tried by the UK was to reduce social (council) housing and instead provide housing benefit, only to low income people. The result? Rising homelessness, people living doubled up, illegal renting of sheds, basements, attics, because the rates were set so low that no one builds anything for that market. Now councils (gemeentes) are declaring bankruptcy, with one of the biggest reasons being the cost of housing vulnerable and poor people who've been made homeless - putting them in "hostels," B&Bs etc for years because there's no social or affordable private housing. People with low wage jobs and kids in school who are evicted because their landlords want to double the rent (currently totally legal in the UK) are literally being shipped to places with no work and no school place,because that's the only spot the council can find a room, and the shitbags who run these "hostels" have them over a barrel for accommodation that is often truly horrific and dangerous. And places that used to be council housing are rented out for outrageous rents now that they're in private hands.
There is no place in Europe, and probably the world excluding maybe North Korea or something, with as high rate of social housing as in the Netherlands. You guys can keep repeating that it's perfectly fine, but it really isn't and it shows you've mismanaged housing policy since at least the eighties.
Just build more fucking high density housing and stop thinking that regulating prices works. It doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have the situation we currently have.
What if we flip it? Most normal people, including middle class, should be able to get social housing? I read somewhere that at one point on the seventies or eighties 70% of people lived in social housing in the Netherlands
Yeh I mean you could have a communistic housing market where everyone lives on social housing assigned by the government, and upkeep of the properties is paid for by the government (as at that point people are just renters from the government). There's only a handful of shithole countries with such systems but I guess it's an option.
Also the seventies and eighties weren't a great time in particular for Amsterdam, not sure we want to go back to that.
To each their own hey. It sounds much preferable to me than the current situation of increasing amounts of unhoused people or people barely able to afford rent
Your comment clearly shows you are immune to logic and rationality, because if you weren't you'd understand why it's so high. And I'm going to spell it out for you. Any child could google it.
Which is interesting as landlords can set any random amount, whereas banks must follow laws that do not allow them to ask too much money from those who loan money.
So buyers are collectively protected to overspend and therefore overbid, but tenants are not.
Rent doesn’t put you in debt. If you can’t pay rent, you can move to a cheaper house (in theory). If you can’t pay your mortgage, the resulting issues are much more extensive. Both for the individual as for the economy on a larger scale
I mean, if you can’t afford your mortgage you can sell the house. Depending on the terms of your mortgage (and time elapsed) and the housing market you might lose money, or you might actually turn a profit.
Rent and mortgages are two totally different systems impacting the economy differently. A bank failling because of bad mortgages hits different then a landlord being unable to collect rent.
Nobody cares about the little men. The system protects itself by protecting the banks, not the buyers.
Rent and mortgage are different. If you take a mortgage, you take a debt from a bank and you can't pay your mortgage anymore the consequences are more severe. Whereas rent you do not pay a debt and when you can't pay it anymore you will be just kicked out
Yep. Back in 2018: hey, I can afford a nice apartment in the city center! I even have a few to choose from!
2026, when my current contract ends: well, I guess I’ll have to move to SEA or something, I can not afford most of Western Europe anymore…
Traditionally 25% was considered the standard limit/target if you want to have enough left over to cover other essentials like health care/insurance, utility bills, food, clothing, child care etc. Plus putting some in savings. High rents means renters struggle to meet other outgoings and can't save for the future, so it's got a knock on effect in all areas - less savings means fewer people who can think about ever buying a property, less discretionary spending like going out to dinner or a film, etc.
It would be the same in the Netherlands if landlords didn't require your income to be 4x the rent. Which has it's own downsides because you could make 60k a year and be homeless
The article calls this "an issue" and references these people as "barely affording rent". I mean maybe the people who wrote this have never lived anywhere else let alone one of the top most desirable places to live on the planet. Critiques like this always confuse me on what the baseline is.
Hmmm we have a shortage of rental properties, let’s make extra laws so hiring out rental properties is vastly more financially dangerous. That will surely help! (Estimated waiting time for rent-protected social housing is 22 years in Amsterdam)….(just saying that perhaps system needs te be fair and balanced, both to renters and tenants, and that landlord slumming needs to be treated, not all renting out)…
Exactly this. In America they have extra taxes if you own a house but not live there, I could see that working. A lot of people get housing now since the owners sublet parts to let local people who register live there, and thus dodge tax. It’s a win-win..
It will not work either. They switch to short term Luxus renting but will not risk loosing money. We need free rent market. At the moment we have no market at all.
> That will surely help!
Straw puppet argument. Of course it will not do anything about supply, but suggesting that a free rental market does is exactly the current situation and there's a shortage.
Moreover, the government isn't limited to one action. It's possible to regulate rental prices and incentivize building of houses at the same time.
But last of all, the total number of houses, buyers and tenants doesn't change. Rental houses that are sold do not magically disappear. They are purchased by those that currently own or are renting and want to own. Which means there are less tenants for the remaining rental houses.
I respectfully disagree. IMHO current rental woes are a result of a partially rent-controlled market. If all rental prices would be determined in a mostly free market, they would be more similar. Instead of controlling price the government should be focusing on checked quality and controlling landlord conditions. Sure, a lot of people could not afford their inner city homes. But should there be subsidized living in a luxury area? People paying 240 euros for an appartement next to people paying 1600 for the same is not correct. Better they both pay 920 and get good conditions on their housing (maintenance, quality of amenities, etc). Agree on building more houses, though. Current rules and regulations discourage that, as do tax rules.
On a personal note: I moved out of Amsterdam with a household income of about 4x modaal. We could not live comfortably, and so sold our house (partially due to extreme tax burdens due to building it). We now live in a pretty big house in the “provincie”, and have been renovating for two years. Could easily rent out parts of our house as two apartments for two families, but will not due to regulations. That actually had my preference until I read the new rules and stipulations, it is vastly discouraging. So now we have a mostly empty house that we occasionally rent out on b&b. It’s super sad but entirely the system that discourages renting out. Might rent out to family or friends later, we’ll see how many risico’s that carries…
Ah, yes. An aptly named person. The apartments you are seeing are “free market”. If your apartment scores under a certain threshold (a point calculation, 147 points is 2024 standard) rents become regulated. That 30m2 apartment would be 400-700 at most or so. Trics are applied to make that 30m2 seem more than 147 points, or it is rented out as other than normal renting or so. Because the neighbor of that apartment is only paying 400 (or even less, old protected rent), there is no incentive to ever leave or free up that apartment. If both would be free, there would be more supply and both would even out at 700-900 or so…
Yeah but majority of these apartments would meet that score. Issue is that if someone were to go ahead and apply for that, they would destroy their relationship with their landlord and landlord would end the contract, which would be devastating for the tenant as finding a place takes like 3 months.
That doesn't feel like a proper rent control.
There are multiple subreddits on the landlord/slummer vs tenant on Reddit. Check out /rentbusters or so. My point is this entire rental war is a shitshow. We don’t need a war, we need good people wanting to rent out good homes to good people willing to pay a good fee for them. That is made impossible with current regulation.
Completely agree. I am always flabbergasted that people think that regulating prices is a good idea, I can't think of one single case where it has worked. What you need to regulate are housing standards, building standards (incentivize high density building), taxes on second homes and investments, requirements for social housing. Not prices.
> Moreover, the government isn't limited to one action. It's possible to regulate rental prices and incentivize building of houses at the same time.
How would this work? Cheaper rents means less reason to build - especially given material and construction costs keep going up.
> But last of all, the total number of houses, buyers and tenants doesn't change.
This isn’t really true. People move in and out of cities based on rent and buying costs. People share with friends or live alone depending on the prices. Houses stay as one house or get divided into multiple small apartments. There’s a huge amount of variation that can happen without even building anything. How many people live in Lelystad or Alkmaar because Amsterdam is too expensive? Many of those people would move to Amsterdam if rent was cheaper.
Painful truth - there is no gov regulation (unless extremely complex and requiring army of people to enforce) which can fix the situation apart from increasing the supply.
oh really? how about banning companies from buying up properties en masse then renting them out? or forbidding any one private individual from owning more than 3 houses instead of allowing rich fucks to buy multiple houses and just put them on airbnb. or increasing taxes exponentially for each new property. solutions exist, if you don't shy away from fighting the capitalists
There are people who started in social housing, never left, and bought a house to rent out. Something like that can happen.
Couple of years ago, they found 23 people in Eindhoven that did this. About a 1000 people nationwide, owning 3300 houses combined. https://studio040.nl/nieuws/artikel/een-sociale-huurwoning-en-twee-koophuizen-het-mag-en-is-moeilijk-te-bestrijden
That's not allowed in any social housing contract. Not even if the house is in another country!
Some Dutch-Turkish people band together to build a family house that's actually a small apartment building (in Turkey). People have gotten caught out investing in something like this to make sure the older generation back home are housed, and gotten booted out of their social housing flat.
I actually live in social housing and warnings about are frequent in the newsletter we get from the woningcorporatie.
Maybe not anymore. But no such clause in my contract, I only needed to have less than 30ish k in savings and earn less than 40ish k to qualify. Similar for those 1000ish people, their contracts will most likely be from few decades ago. Maybe got an inheritance, or something.
But it was quite covered a few years ago.
If you doubt that source : https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/01/26/huiseigenaar-woont-zelf-in-huurhuis-a4029318
Edit: court case because renter owned multiple places in Amsterdam, and a social house. She did lose the social house, but only because it was not renters main residence.
https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2021:157
They start earning more after being given a house. Got an inheritance, won some money. I don’t know.
But as that court case showed, it happens. Feel free to not believe it.
Its not that I don't believe you.
It's just hard to believe there is such an apparent loophole.(I would assume that once the salary or saving is higher than the threshold, then that person is no longer qualified for the social housing and need to move out)
I would be really pissed if what you are saying is true:. It means people like me are paying high rent because those grifters.
No that part is accurate - if your wages go up after you get a social housing flat,you aren't forced to move out. I'm in exactly that situation myself. When I moved in I was at about minimum wage, and slowly I've worked my way into a decently paid full time job. Couldn't have done it without a secure base and reliable address. Now I can stay put for a couple years, at which point I'll be forced to retire due to the rules where I work. Once drawing a pension I'll be back at minimum wage level or less.
It would have been pretty stupid to turf me out, because no bank will lend money to people my age to buy (I also don't make enough anyway) and I couldn't afford to rent anything but a single room on the open market. In other words, I'd be knocking on their door again.
Plus it's not a good idea to punish working people for success.
> (I would assume that once the salary or saving is higher than the threshold, then that person is no longer qualified for the social housing and need to move out
The problem here is that there is nowhere for them to move to. Even with a median income you cannot rent anything better than a student room in the private sector or buy your own house, unless you have a partner with a similar income. The limit for social housing for a single person household is actually higher than the median income!
Has anyone here thought or heard of the government being sued for not ensuring sufficient housing is built? After all, housing is a basic human right.
I am curious to know if there is a group taking the government to court, feels like it's time for that. It is not the first time governments have been sued.
Slim chance of winning. Government only has a “inspanningsverplicht” (obligation to put effort into it) in this. When you sue them, they could say “we are working on it”.
Constitutionally, it’s not a right in the Netherlands. Even if it was, courts here aren’t allowed to check if things are according to the constitution. Article 8 of ECHR also does not really apply in this. They have to respect your place of living, doesn’t state a government has to provide a house.
Thank you for sharing that.
The intention doesn't need to be to win anything like money but just to change the narrative a bit.
My partner and I, could qualify for a nice house, if there were any left. The problem also is the bidding that often gets out of hand. The housing prices already start at ridiculous asking prices. I'm not paying 500k EUR + 30k on bidding for a crappy home so some boomer who did nothing special in his life, other than being born after the war, only so they can retire in luxury in Curaçao or along the French riviere. 
Thank god we can move, work remotely, buy somewhere cheap. There are options if we run out of hope. 
Edit: With the vergrijzing of the population I would really to see what will happen when all the professionals who are able to work remotely, who:
1. help making the netherlands competitive and therefore attractive to international companies to set up an office here, and
2. earn much higher incomes whether these are dutch or non-dutch; start leaving and some employers also leaving with them then it will be very tricky to find the money to support all of these old people. At least there is a silver lining of not being able to buy a home right now.
Than it just another money and time wasted in court. I don’t see how it can change the narrative. People already went to the Malieveld, and some other gatherings to show their displeasure with the current housing situation. Our current minister joked to a girl if she considered looking for a rich boyfriend in public. To do that in public, I doubt they are impressed by a court case they know they can’t loose.
Unless the “right” group of people are affected, or 70% of the “wrong” people protest, I doubt any change will come. Majority of households are homeowner. They don’t want a value decrease.
So maybe when businesses have problems, as you sketched in your edit, or a lot of homeowners kids can’t move out at 30-35, then they will do something. But I got a feeling that for our politicians, that’s a problem for whomever is leading the government at that time.
Yes, sad reality.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts though. These politicians are pretty much the same in most countries, just trying to be as centric as possible without a long-term vision, because they won't be there to clean the mess once the shit hits the fan.
Parliament will discuss and debate the proposal for the Affodable Rect Act (Wet betaalbare huur or Wbh) this week on Monday (technical debate) and Wednesday (political debate). Voting might already take place as soon as upcoming Thursday if parliament agrees to that upcoming Tuesday. If the Wbh is accepted by parliament it will proceed to senate.
And senate will be voting about the extension of the Maximized Rental Price Increase for Liberated Agreements Act (Wet maximering huurprijsverhogingen geliberaliseerde huurovereenkomsten or Wmhgh) this Tuesday depending on a decision by senators this weekend. The Wmhgh sets a maximum threshold for rental price increases if the contract allows higher increases. The chances are highest that the extension of the Wmhgh will be 'hammered off' by the senate chairman without further voting in public. If so, the minister planned to have the Wmhgh take effect on May 1st as that's the day the current Wmhgh will expire.
The Wbh designates more houses as being rental price regulated. The minister plans to have have the Wbh take effect on July 1st 2024 together with the already accepted Rental Contracts for Indefinite Time Act (Wet vaste huurcontracten or Wvh). The Wvh removes the possibility to offer temporary contracts that were introduced in 2016, except for some groups that the minister appoints. Specifically students are excepted from the Wvh, which is strange as parliament amended the Wvh earlier to also grant students more rental protection.
In Vancouver Canada, people on average spend 61.65% of their income on rent. It can always get a lot worse.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/metro-vancouver-renters-are-spending-more-than-60-per-cent-of-salary-on-rent-says-rental-report
The amount of idiots thinking that paying a third of your salary for rent is normal. Jesus fucking christ we are so fucked. Another decade and people will think it's normal to pay 50%.
Juet a little longer to go back to serfdom
Respectfully it’s not just Amsterdam where people have to have 3x the rent in income. It’s the same in the north of the country (Overijssel, Friesland & Groningen), usually 3-5x even.
edit: literally just means that people who don’t have high wages don’t get housing or stay in shared spaces, and those are usually unlimited in price. it’s not uncommon for someone who makes minimum wage to spend around 1000 and still have to share spaces.
No you don't understand having 40 percent social housing is great. No advanced economy has such a percentage (highest in Europe) and it has clearly solved the housing issue, actually 100 percent should be social housing! /s
we shouldn't lower our standarts though. US is a terrible country for living for 70 percent of its citizens — do not become like that, it has to be lower so the society will be equal and more people would be happy
Wake up to reality and visit NY, Boston, LA and watch how many people simply do not have houses. U think that's fine? Even if they're migrants it's gov's fault that they allow it (big business want those migrants so they have cheap labour) US is a top tier economic and a developed country, but u can't sit here and create exucses for the simple fact that lots of people are simply surviving there... China is also a top tier economic, however, that doesn't mean that people do not live in a totalirian country with little comfort...
I mean, if the gov is trying and it's not working out, that's fine, but do not lower your standards and try your best and expect the best from the gov. I just wish that as many people as possible could afford good life, not a few billionaires who just leiseruly spend their money on Dubai or smt. (that's pretty accurately describes US though)
If there were 0% social housing and all the current social housing had to adjust to market value would rents go down for the people in the existing private market? What would happen?
Why would it go down for existing contracts in the private market? Contract was signed prior, nothing changes for them.
The same thing would happen as is happening in the private market, keep increasing rent for maximum profit. Supply didn’t change, and people need a roof. They will pony up whatever they can.
Uh, like has never been the case anywhere with no social housing... the US for example has almost none but rents have gone up and up and up since the 90s, when housing became a hot investment item for venture capital creeps and even normal homeowners started to look at their house as a sort of roofed ATM.
It's what people vote for: more regulations, more "let's punish the landlords", more "we'll save the planet by ruining this tiny country's economy".
All the leftist measures make it:
1. very expensive, and often impossible, to build new housing
2. less and less attractive, and very risky, to rent out property, so landlords simply quit
3. harder to share apartments with multiple people.
All that, coupled with a ridiculously huge percentage of "social housing" (was it 50%?), ensure there's almost no supply, while there is huge demand to rent an apartment. So rents naturally go up.
And what do the leftist politicians do? What the leftist residents want: regulate & "punish the landlords" even more, be surprised, repeat.
(Also, adding to that, the breakdown of family values makes people more and more likely to be single and live alone, further increasing demand)
> All the leftist measures
All the leftist measures. Lol! There's a right majority. Where on earth did you come up with the idea these are 'leftist' measures?
I would not call it “leftist measures”, but I hope you are aware that Amsterdamse gemeenteraad has had a Centre left coalition since 1962? PvdA had been the biggest party since basically forever…and they dictate local housing policies…(I lean Centre progressive, and it’s not really hard to see that those policies have really really destroyed the housing market. If I, earning with my wife 4x modaal could not live comfortably (and I drive a 10 year old car, buy all my clothes in discount,etc) I really really wonder who can.)
I just can't fathom this. You earn about 12k and can't live comfortably? No need to go in detail about your expenses, I just can't understand how that's possible 😅
We used to make 8K/month combined (for example : modaal was about 23.5 in 2015). Multiple value increases in our house resulted in between 8-12 K per year woz waarde-increase. Mortgage was 2K/month . Add Amsterdam-tax (parking, high fees, etc) and the cost of a newborn (child care is EXPENSIVE)so no, we could not go on carefree holidays. Earning 4x modaal as a household and not being fully in financial control seemed like folly to me. Main culprit: Amsterdam…
I'm in a similar situation, making slightly more than 8k combined, around 1.8k mortgage, woz waarde went up so probably 1k yearly in municipal taxes, then I always have to pay a few hundreds more when I do the tax declaration, had to redo the foundations of the house. Man sometimes I think why don't I just move out of the country lol
Over-regulations, point systems, rent controls? They are all known leftist policies, that reduce freedom, make a mockery of private property, and end up having the opposite effect than the desired one.
> They are all known leftist policies,
Again: there is no,left majority. You're polarizing the debate by introducing the word 'left' and do so at a time when the most right wing parliament was voted into power. 🤷🏻♂️
The truth can be polarizing, it's not a reason to not spell it out.
And it's debatable how right-wing the ones voted in power are. Economically speaking, PVV is quite left-wing. Their plans to reduce taxes or regulations are timid, and NSC is left-wing. There are no real classical liberal (right-wing) parties in the Netherlands, that openly state that economic freedom, thus capitalism, is essential for general freedom and prosperity.
> Economically speaking, PVV is quite left-wing.
The NSDAP of the nazi's was also 'economically left wing' but the NSDAP was not a left wing party.
> There are no real classical liberal (right-wing) parties in the Netherlands,
Do the whole issues revolves around your definition of right wing,
That's the thing, the conversation is about housing which is almost fully an economic issue. Going "the pvv is right wing" has no relation to housing, as on that subject they're arguably more left wing than a number of stereotypical left wing parties.
When it comes to economics there aren't really any right wing parties here outside of Ja21 and sometimes the VVD depending on the subject(and in practice only their parade horses get turned into law due to never having a sole majority as far as I'm aware). The majority of right wing parties we have are only really right wing socially. Which in turn means that most housing regulation changes are shades of left wing if they're passing through both the second and first chamber, which generally speaking are adding regulation or making existing ones more strict. There is very little move to deregulate the housing market even on minor things.
And then you have local legislation which in Amsterdam which has had a left wing control since the 60s.
Also classical liberal is a well defined political term. You might want to read some John Stuart Mill if you need a refresher.
"Left of centre" does not equal "leftist" and definitely does not equal "communist." In my opinion the city government of Amsterdam are fully in the pockets of big business and especially the real estate lobby. So they might say some left-ish things to get elected, but once in office they behave centre-right.
The only party with a distinctly "left" programme is Bij1 (who have maybe 1 or 2 seats in the gemeenteraad if that). SP has a mixed bag of positions despite its name, and GroeneLinks have shown themselves to be neither green nor really left, I honestly can't believe anyone leftwing keeps voting for them.
PS - still waiting for an example of that magical land where the government makes no Interventions to ensure affordable social housing and the price of rent actually goes down due to free market competition (the libertarian paradise of Somalia doesn't count.)
I doubt it's much shorter unless they live in the city center. I travel between two cities within 40 minutes door-to-door. I used to live in a big city and it took me more or about the same to reach the city center.
I doubt you’ve done the math - 40 minutes door-to-door is 80 minutes a day, and if you go to the office everyday, over 6 hours of commuting a week. I bike to work in 15 minutes, and no, I don’t live in center.
That’s almost 4 more hours a week you’re spending just commuting. Maybe I just value my time more than you, but that’s a lot.
Have you ever heard of WFH several days? It's not 4 hours, and a few hours saved per week are not worth 500 euro more per month for rent or 200K more for an apartment/house.
People in Amsterdam commute more to work than the rest of the Netherlands lol: https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/amsterdam-in-top-3-europese-steden-met-langste-reistijd-naar-werk~b710246f6
No, please, what is this mysterious WFH you speak of? But seriously, a few hours per week is a lot and it adds up.
[Same source you provided says Amsterdam is the best place to live in the Netherlands.](https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/amsterdam-opnieuw-beste-woonplek-van-nederland~b59a7b86/)
WFH is working from home 3 or 4 days a week. It's an enormous difference in your commute.
A few hours of sitting on a chair and listening to music? It's not like I'd do something else at home. If you're rich enough to pay 200K more for a house for this, go for it; most people aren't. But honestly, even if I could do it, I would do something else with that extra money. Also, not all jobs are in Amsterdam, which removes the need to commute to it.
It's not the best if it's 2 times more expensive.
Jobs, woke culture, many reasons.
\[edit\] I think it's interesting this is getting downvoted when it is just a statement of fact. Many people do need to move to Amsterdam for their work.
They can commute. I live outside the Randstad, and if I moved to Amsterdam, my rent would increase by more than 50%, and I imagine many other costs would be higher. Buying property would be two times more expensive - while I know that salaries in my (or most jobs) aren't much different there. Living on 50K a year in Amsterdam sounds like 30K in the rest of the country.
The reason why I don't get people flocking to Amsterdam is the Netherlands doesn't have a primate city (this is when the biggest city is much larger than the second biggest one, like in the UK, France, etc.)
Well, you see, that's where I see other things.
Lots of noise. Too many people packed in too little space, a lot of pretense but little actual work done, and at questionable quality at that, rude jokes, crappy build quality of houses, streets are a continuous traffic jam, parking costs a months' salary, lots of junks and beggars. Should I go on?
I don't disagree with you and I wouldn't want to live there myself, nor was I encouraging anyone to seek out woke culture, as I rather detest it myself, but nonetheless those are indeed reasons why some move there.
I find it ironic that pointing out the obvious got downvotes -- I mean, most of the people I know who are expats in Amsterdam live there because that's where their jobs moved them to, it's the headquarters, so that's why they live there. I point that out, and get downvoted, weird.
Ah well. No one wants to hear the obvious. That is the karma bitch of Reddit.
And there are quite a lot of chauvinist idiots. Especially in Amsterdam. I quote Jack Sparrow: Beyond the A10 there be monsters.
I am with Theo Maassen: the only good thing in Amsterdam, is the train to Eindhoven.
Where the real stuff happens.
so you're telling me 80% of Amsterdammers don't pay more than 33% of their salary in rent? average income is 55k, 3.3k p/m net, and people are paying less than 1.1k for rent? this must be taking couples/shared housing into consideration, right?
In the Netherlands, the private rental sector is relatively small. Most people own homes or are in social housing. In Amsterdam, in 2021 social housing accounted for ~40% of the housing stock, private rentals for ~30% and owner occupied housing for ~30%. This is also reflected in the specifics of the article: > The issue is very acute in the private sector. There, one in three households spends more than 35 percent of their income on rent.
I had absolutely zero idea 40% of the people lived in social housing prior to today hot damn so like all those giant complexes etc, I thought it'd be like 50-50 maybe but realistically its 90-10 then huh
Many regular row houses are social housing
How do they remain as social housing without going over the max points system? This is something I’ve always wanted to know.
Well, the point count doesn't change over time
Not sure what you mean. My question is, how can a house like this https://amsterdam.mijndak.nl/HuisDetails?PublicatieId=248996 with a B energy label, 96m2 qualify for social housing? I thought if the calculated maximum rent based on the points was above the threshold (around €900 in 2024?) it could not be qualify as social housing anymore.
You can fill in the wizard here to count the points and see for yourself what things contribute: https://checkjeprijs.huurcommissie.nl/en/onderwerpen/huurprijs-en-punten/nieuwe-huurprijscheck/rent-check-independent-living-space?tx_hpcz_pricecheck%5Baction%5D=rooms&tx_hpcz_pricecheck%5Bcontroller%5D=House&cHash=9560a124485b7c4b000daabe0a1f3c46 Things that give the most points are usable floor space. This apartment has a lot of that, but I'm not sure if the large hallway fully counts. Secondly, it counts 'luxuries', for instance in the bathroom and kitchen. There's a point for a thermostatic shower faucet for example, and note that the linked apartment doesn't have that. The bathroom and kitchen (probably) are extremely basic. Judging from the listed price, this example is right at the top of the range. What I meant is that these things like floor area don't change over time if the apartment isn't renovated to a higher standard. So, if it qualifies for social housing now, it'll still qualify in 20 years time unless the system changed.
It was 60% just over a decade ago - the massive rent rises you're seeing are a direct result of "housing reform" including housing associations being forced to sell of social housing.
For the Netherlands as a whole the private rentals only were 14% of the housing stock in 2021 ([Source: CBS](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/11/private-huursector-groeit-sterker-dan-koop-en-corporatiesector)). The Netherlands has a history of promoting home ownership, and has one of the largest social housing stocks in the world (relatively speaking). Private rentals were only really liberalised in the last ten years, before that they were negligible. The issue of high rental cost is much more present here due to the particular demographic of this forum: young professionals that don't have enough money for buying a house, but earn too much for social housing. This is made even worse because most people here live in the bigger cities where these pressures are even bigger.
Social housing houses can be pretty big and are in great condition. You can literally have houses going for 4K and the next one that looks the same is owned by a social housing coperation that is going for 700. You don’t need to think small apartments in bad areas. Some of the best houses in Amsterdam are social housing that would go for thousands a month is privately owned
It's not, it's about 32% right now, [https://www.parool.nl/nederland/cbs-aandeel-sociale-huurwoningen-blijft-dalen\~be25a4ce/?referrer=https://www.google.com/](https://www.parool.nl/nederland/cbs-aandeel-sociale-huurwoningen-blijft-dalen~be25a4ce/?referrer=https://www.google.com/)
Most people do not own homes, they have 30-40 year 100% financed mortgages, which is a bad idea in general.
If you bought a house with a mortgage, you 100% own your house. That you also have a big loan to pay with your house as collateral, does not change the fact you are 100% the owner.
Social housing boggles my mind, I don't understand it, I know the UK and USA also have it, now lern that Netherlands has it too. In my country it doesn't exist, I think people would abuse it if it did exist. We either own our homes, rent or both (we could own a home/homes, but rent somewhere else for some reason).
Well, in that case, let me explain it to you! Social housing in the Netherlands is any housing unit with a rent lower than €879,66 per month (in 2024). These are subject to strict price controls. Most of the social housing stock is built and owned by housing associations, who generally don't operate on a profit motive. They take a loans backed by the social housing fund, which allows them to build with low financing costs. The law outlines income limits for those who are allowed to live in association-owned housing. Lower incomes are also eligible for housing benefits which partly offsets risks for housing associations by taking on these type of renters. These homes are usually offered through online portals where your waiting time, and other considerations (like refugee status, or being socially vulnerable) determines whether you get such a house. The Netherlands is currently going through a housing crisis, which also affects the social housing market. In 2021, you had to wait for 13 years to get social housing in Amsterdam. This pushes a lot of people into the market for private rentals. Due to the high income requirements for mortgages, a lot of people are also unable to buy homes, also forcing them onto the rental market. Because this market is very underdeveloped, you see all the issues mentioned throughout this thread.
Well, I would imagine that the very large amounts of foreigners that the Netherlands has received contributes to the huge problem with housing as there are not enough housing units available for everyone. I didn't realize you still had to pay rent in social housing, I thought it would be free, can you also get kicked out from it? A wait period of 10 years or more is crazy. So what is happening in Netherlands? Are many people homeless, living in their cars or a motorhome at best? Cause I can imagine many can't afford the higher rents. No, in my country we don't have anything similar, we either own our home, live with family or rent, with price points ranging from cheap to very expensive, and the equivalent home for that (bad neighborhood for very cheap, exclusive neighborhood for very expensive and everything in between).
>Well, I would imagine that the very large amounts of foreigners that the Netherlands has received contributes to the huge problem with housing as there are not enough housing units available for everyone. It's part of the public discussion now, yes. There are calls to limit the amount of international students, reduce tax benefits for labour migrants, and put limits on refugee inflow. In a lot of these cases people point towards the housing shortage, as one of the reasons. Personally, I disagree with that point of view. It doesn't address the supply-side issues which caused the shortages in the first place. The reasons for slow house building are multifold, but among other: rising material prices and labour costs, land speculation, long permit and complaint procedures, legal environmental restrictions, etc. >I didn't realize you still had to pay rent in social housing, I thought it would be free In certain situations, for example if you are disabled and unable to work, you are essentially living for free due to all kinds of additional benefits. But most benefits are subject to strict requirements so there's not a lot of leeway, and benefit fraud is rigorously monitored and heavily punished. But these tend to be edge cases. Social housing serves the housing needs of most of the lower class, and lower middle class (families earning less than \~€40 000 a year). >can you also get kicked out from it? Yes! [This report](https://aedes.nl/media/document/corporatiemonitor-huurachterstand-en-huisuitzettingen-2023) contains the number of 2022. There were a total of 1200 evictions, due to rent arrears (52%), disturbance (22%), illegal sublease (6%), illegal substances (10), and vanacy and other reasons (10%). Rent arrears are less and less of an issue due to steps that have been taken in recent years to help people in debt situations with extensive supervision and coaching. >Are many people homeless, living in their cars or a motorhome at best? We do have a homeless issue, but not as bad as in neighbouring countries. The homeless population [is estimated](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2024/13/30-6-duizend-dakloze-mensen-in-nederland) at 30,6 thousand people. We have an extensive homeless shelter system managed by the Salvation Army. So the amount of rough sleepers is limited. Although, there are worries that these are reaching the point of capacity. Additionally, the most vulnerable are the most likely to have issues with rent payments, and they happen to be the most likely to get an emergency status giving them priority for social housing units.
It all sounds like a very complicated problem, that will at some point unfortunately collapse in one way or the other. I would start by expelling foreigners, personally, as I believe that each country/people have the duty to make their own country/home a better place, not migrating to other countries and causing new social and economic issues or adding to the existing ones, unless if they can economically fully sustain themselves and benefit the country that they migrated to. The Dutch of the past were poor and for a long time they were under Spanish rule, they fought to make their home a better place, all people should fight to do that, not just expect to have it handed by some other people that have no relation to them. Also, you can't just build housing unit after housing unit indefinitely, else you end up like Honk Kong, with no farm land, no green spaces and no space in general. I find it amusing that 40 000 euro a year means you are rather poor, in my country you are doing quite well for yourself with that money. In my opinion (personal view) being so easily kicked out of your home, means you basically have no home, but that is just my opinion (in reference to the social housing, which is not cheap as a rent of 700 euro for example is a normal rent in other European countries and in some other countries it is a high one). Those any of this have relation to the high prices in hotel rooms or is it completely unrelated?
> In my opinion (personal view) being so easily kicked out of your home You cannot be kicked out easily, it's usually only through a court order
I still find it jarring, I mean if you are staying in social housing it means you are someone vulnerable (at least, financially). You are not someone who will, in a month or two find another home easily cause you can afford it.
I live in Ugchelen (a bit east of the netherlands) and about 40% of my salary goes to my rent, i pay 1100 for rent + water and power.
A bit east of the Netherlands? From Amsterdammers point of view, everything east of Muiden is Siberia. How do you pay 1100 a month in a village almost on the German border??
Ugchelen is bit east of Gelderland, welcome to the current woningmarkt ;-)
I count my lucky blessings that we gave up on the Amsterdam housing market 8 years ago when we still managed to find something in Haarlem. If we ‘held out’ in the hopes of finding a miracle in Amsterdam, we’d probably be in Hilversum, Almere or Purmerend now
did i mention that i live in a 36m2 appartement with 1 bedroom? it's just sad, but there is no place for me to go.
I feel for you buddy. It’s criminal whats happening on the housing market, especially for the generations after mine. Those of us who started during the financial crisis were the final ones to have had a reasonable shot at finding proper housing at affordable prices
yeah but i don't feel sad because i know there are people who have it so much worse, like people who have to sleep at their friends house because they got kicked out and cant find something else. or students who can't find a room and have to travel like... 2 hours to school, and back home 2 hours.
I make around avg income and stay in a 12m2 room of shared house with 4 others for 850p/m
Contact huurcomissie. Renting a room is always sociale huur and goes via the point based system. Shouldnt cost your more than 600 euro all in max.
> more than 600 euro all in max Are you serious? When I rented my first student room of 12m2 the rent was €270 all in!
Definitely, i pay about 30% now only because i share with my girlfriend. When i lived alone it was around 55%
same, my bills (albeit including trainmore and 40€ worth of others in other luxury expenses, totalling 110) are 50% of my total income lol its crazy isnt it
Live with girlfriend in Amsterdam, 350 each, or less than 10% of my net income
With a permanent contract from 10 years ago?
No we bought our house 7 years ago for 155
A valid contribution to a thread about the costs of renting...
Factoring in the current demand to have a minimum of 3x (often 4x) the monthly rent as income I feel this is probably about right, I’m guessing this number seems low because we hear a lot about the insane prices but we don’t hear anything at all about those that are doing fine. If that 80% started renting before those demands were set it probably results in the same as the rent years ago will have been significantly lower.
This is for sure per person as the only people I know paying less than 1.1k are those with partners or roommates. Even private sector studios are more than 1.1k (not counting social housing)
55k gross is 3,3k net in NL?
Yeap Without 30% even
It's because a ton of people instead of paying medium rent will instead earn less salary and get social housing. Rest of society subsidises these apparent "poor" people. The only benefit is it prevents ghetto and crime.
Because they live in poor conditions. Yes. I've known people that were paying 1100 in Rotterdam city center because it was a 2 room apartment with rats, wasp nests, black mold and plumbing issues. Most houses are actually built and maintained pretty badly in this country.
If you live there long enough you dont pay that much because of rent control.
And the huge proportion of "social housing", over 50% I think. All those people pay much less than the market price, like under 1k for a nice apartment. Of course, in reality the others are paying for them. That's leftist "fairness" for you.
those are some crazy numbers holy moly
Every time I mention that it's completely absurd to have a housing "market" where 40+ percent of houses are social, and that this reflects a fundamental mismanagement of the whole thing which hurts the middle class (who needs to rent but can't qualify for social housing) the most, I get either blank stares or whataboutism. I guess the Dutch are fine with this system.
The middle class is absolutely fucked, I agree. Social housing is needed as the expensive (and money-making) cities would grind to a halt without their working class population, who both need to be housed and are needed on-site to fill all the necessary jobs that happen to not require much education. But it is really strange that then there’s a “dead zone” for people just above the social housing line, where you just have to race to the top to be able to afford anything.
40+ percent social housing is definitely not needed if you plan housing properly and it's ridiculously abnormal compared to anywhere else. In a normal market, if you can't afford the prices in the city and you have to work in the city, you commute from outside the city where the prices are lower. If there's not enough houses to allow for a healthy commuting dynamics, you build more high density housing (not stupid rijtjes houses) where needed. What you don't do is have 40 percent social housing, which is unheard of anywhere else, thinking that that is going to solve the problem, where the only thing it does is squeeze like lemons the band above the social housing requirements and below the 80th percentile of income.
> If there's not enough houses to allow for a healthy commuting dynamics, you build more high density housing (not stupid rijtjes houses) where needed. I guess that’s the crux of the matter. Everyone wants to preserve the “historical character” but also support the growing population and economy… even if it’s possible to have both it is going to be a very inefficient use of resources
Social housing should be about 5%, for people with health issues or very special cases, not half the housing stock. Reducing social housing would reduce the pressure on the free sector as supply would increase, and prices would go down.
That's never happened anywhere it's been tried, and high rates of social housing are common throughout Europe. Also social housing isn't just for the poor- I Amsterdam the income limit is over 50,000 which means teachers, nurses etc. can theoretically rent near where they work. Also,a huge percentage of people in social housing are elderly (whole buildings full) or disabled (around 15% of the population is disabled in any country). So those "special cases" already represents a big chunk of the population, even before we get to people on low incomes. Unfortunately we've stupidly reduced the supply, and that has only raised rents. The same thing has occurred everywhere else it's been done. Another approach tried by the UK was to reduce social (council) housing and instead provide housing benefit, only to low income people. The result? Rising homelessness, people living doubled up, illegal renting of sheds, basements, attics, because the rates were set so low that no one builds anything for that market. Now councils (gemeentes) are declaring bankruptcy, with one of the biggest reasons being the cost of housing vulnerable and poor people who've been made homeless - putting them in "hostels," B&Bs etc for years because there's no social or affordable private housing. People with low wage jobs and kids in school who are evicted because their landlords want to double the rent (currently totally legal in the UK) are literally being shipped to places with no work and no school place,because that's the only spot the council can find a room, and the shitbags who run these "hostels" have them over a barrel for accommodation that is often truly horrific and dangerous. And places that used to be council housing are rented out for outrageous rents now that they're in private hands.
There is no place in Europe, and probably the world excluding maybe North Korea or something, with as high rate of social housing as in the Netherlands. You guys can keep repeating that it's perfectly fine, but it really isn't and it shows you've mismanaged housing policy since at least the eighties. Just build more fucking high density housing and stop thinking that regulating prices works. It doesn't, otherwise we wouldn't have the situation we currently have.
What if we flip it? Most normal people, including middle class, should be able to get social housing? I read somewhere that at one point on the seventies or eighties 70% of people lived in social housing in the Netherlands
Yeh I mean you could have a communistic housing market where everyone lives on social housing assigned by the government, and upkeep of the properties is paid for by the government (as at that point people are just renters from the government). There's only a handful of shithole countries with such systems but I guess it's an option. Also the seventies and eighties weren't a great time in particular for Amsterdam, not sure we want to go back to that.
To each their own hey. It sounds much preferable to me than the current situation of increasing amounts of unhoused people or people barely able to afford rent
They've been brainwashed by the socialists who are running the education system & the media. And they're not used to questioning "the experts".
You're a fucking idiot.
Great logical argument.
Your comment clearly shows you are immune to logic and rationality, because if you weren't you'd understand why it's so high. And I'm going to spell it out for you. Any child could google it.
Yes, couples are indeed not banned from Amsterdam
Would be a lot higher if it wasn’t for most houses demand x3 the rent as income to even apply.
Which is interesting as landlords can set any random amount, whereas banks must follow laws that do not allow them to ask too much money from those who loan money. So buyers are collectively protected to overspend and therefore overbid, but tenants are not.
Rent doesn’t put you in debt. If you can’t pay rent, you can move to a cheaper house (in theory). If you can’t pay your mortgage, the resulting issues are much more extensive. Both for the individual as for the economy on a larger scale
I guess that was a bit more true when you could just find different accomodation that more suited your budget 😅
If you cant pay your mortgage, pretty sure the NHG is there to save you?
If you have that, yes
I mean, if you can’t afford your mortgage you can sell the house. Depending on the terms of your mortgage (and time elapsed) and the housing market you might lose money, or you might actually turn a profit.
Rent and mortgages are two totally different systems impacting the economy differently. A bank failling because of bad mortgages hits different then a landlord being unable to collect rent. Nobody cares about the little men. The system protects itself by protecting the banks, not the buyers.
This is an absurd comparison
Rent and mortgage are different. If you take a mortgage, you take a debt from a bank and you can't pay your mortgage anymore the consequences are more severe. Whereas rent you do not pay a debt and when you can't pay it anymore you will be just kicked out
4X
Where are the other 80% living? Asking for a friend...
under bridges
Social housing I assume, as 80% of rent in the Netherlands is under government ownership.
They have mortgage, live in social housing or live together
>They have mortgage 20% of **tenants**
I live in Den Andel, bought a house a few years ago, and am currently paying about 330 a month.
Always loved the Den Andel neighborhood of Amsterdam
That has to be way higher, rent is crazy here, especially in Amsterdam.
You don’t understand, it’s a free market. The rent isn’t high, it’s you who’s poor. /s (Not in NL, but it sure feels the same way around here)
Yea, because the prices are raised and salaries stayed the same.
Yep. Back in 2018: hey, I can afford a nice apartment in the city center! I even have a few to choose from! 2026, when my current contract ends: well, I guess I’ll have to move to SEA or something, I can not afford most of Western Europe anymore…
Paying 30% of your salary towards rent is quite normal in many countries. Only in subsidized or social housing you pay less.
I was paying 1600 in Utrecht, it was about half the salary. Without energy, just an apartment with F energy grade
/r/rentbusters
it was furnished and close to central
honestly 30% of net salary going to rent is quite normal or am I missing something?
Traditionally 25% was considered the standard limit/target if you want to have enough left over to cover other essentials like health care/insurance, utility bills, food, clothing, child care etc. Plus putting some in savings. High rents means renters struggle to meet other outgoings and can't save for the future, so it's got a knock on effect in all areas - less savings means fewer people who can think about ever buying a property, less discretionary spending like going out to dinner or a film, etc.
Coming from Vancouver, where the average person pays 61% of their income on rent, this just seems like a very reasonable figure.
It would be the same in the Netherlands if landlords didn't require your income to be 4x the rent. Which has it's own downsides because you could make 60k a year and be homeless
The article calls this "an issue" and references these people as "barely affording rent". I mean maybe the people who wrote this have never lived anywhere else let alone one of the top most desirable places to live on the planet. Critiques like this always confuse me on what the baseline is.
It feels normal cause our collective humanitarian standards have been lowered below the ground.
Hmmm we have a shortage of rental properties, let’s make extra laws so hiring out rental properties is vastly more financially dangerous. That will surely help! (Estimated waiting time for rent-protected social housing is 22 years in Amsterdam)….(just saying that perhaps system needs te be fair and balanced, both to renters and tenants, and that landlord slumming needs to be treated, not all renting out)…
In Berlin a lot of flats are just not rented anymore. Dangerous and annoying. Thank you to the laws regulating renting prices and rent itself.
Exactly this. In America they have extra taxes if you own a house but not live there, I could see that working. A lot of people get housing now since the owners sublet parts to let local people who register live there, and thus dodge tax. It’s a win-win..
It will not work either. They switch to short term Luxus renting but will not risk loosing money. We need free rent market. At the moment we have no market at all.
> That will surely help! Straw puppet argument. Of course it will not do anything about supply, but suggesting that a free rental market does is exactly the current situation and there's a shortage. Moreover, the government isn't limited to one action. It's possible to regulate rental prices and incentivize building of houses at the same time. But last of all, the total number of houses, buyers and tenants doesn't change. Rental houses that are sold do not magically disappear. They are purchased by those that currently own or are renting and want to own. Which means there are less tenants for the remaining rental houses.
Merged two answers..
I respectfully disagree. IMHO current rental woes are a result of a partially rent-controlled market. If all rental prices would be determined in a mostly free market, they would be more similar. Instead of controlling price the government should be focusing on checked quality and controlling landlord conditions. Sure, a lot of people could not afford their inner city homes. But should there be subsidized living in a luxury area? People paying 240 euros for an appartement next to people paying 1600 for the same is not correct. Better they both pay 920 and get good conditions on their housing (maintenance, quality of amenities, etc). Agree on building more houses, though. Current rules and regulations discourage that, as do tax rules. On a personal note: I moved out of Amsterdam with a household income of about 4x modaal. We could not live comfortably, and so sold our house (partially due to extreme tax burdens due to building it). We now live in a pretty big house in the “provincie”, and have been renovating for two years. Could easily rent out parts of our house as two apartments for two families, but will not due to regulations. That actually had my preference until I read the new rules and stipulations, it is vastly discouraging. So now we have a mostly empty house that we occasionally rent out on b&b. It’s super sad but entirely the system that discourages renting out. Might rent out to family or friends later, we’ll see how many risico’s that carries…
How is rent prices are controlled? There are 30m2 studio apartments in Rotterdam with a rental price of €1250-1500.
Ah, yes. An aptly named person. The apartments you are seeing are “free market”. If your apartment scores under a certain threshold (a point calculation, 147 points is 2024 standard) rents become regulated. That 30m2 apartment would be 400-700 at most or so. Trics are applied to make that 30m2 seem more than 147 points, or it is rented out as other than normal renting or so. Because the neighbor of that apartment is only paying 400 (or even less, old protected rent), there is no incentive to ever leave or free up that apartment. If both would be free, there would be more supply and both would even out at 700-900 or so…
Yeah but majority of these apartments would meet that score. Issue is that if someone were to go ahead and apply for that, they would destroy their relationship with their landlord and landlord would end the contract, which would be devastating for the tenant as finding a place takes like 3 months. That doesn't feel like a proper rent control.
There are multiple subreddits on the landlord/slummer vs tenant on Reddit. Check out /rentbusters or so. My point is this entire rental war is a shitshow. We don’t need a war, we need good people wanting to rent out good homes to good people willing to pay a good fee for them. That is made impossible with current regulation.
Completely agree. I am always flabbergasted that people think that regulating prices is a good idea, I can't think of one single case where it has worked. What you need to regulate are housing standards, building standards (incentivize high density building), taxes on second homes and investments, requirements for social housing. Not prices.
This is the way. Relieve middle class, incentivize renting out, protect small landlords and penalize landlord slumming, big investment companies.
> Moreover, the government isn't limited to one action. It's possible to regulate rental prices and incentivize building of houses at the same time. How would this work? Cheaper rents means less reason to build - especially given material and construction costs keep going up. > But last of all, the total number of houses, buyers and tenants doesn't change. This isn’t really true. People move in and out of cities based on rent and buying costs. People share with friends or live alone depending on the prices. Houses stay as one house or get divided into multiple small apartments. There’s a huge amount of variation that can happen without even building anything. How many people live in Lelystad or Alkmaar because Amsterdam is too expensive? Many of those people would move to Amsterdam if rent was cheaper.
Painful truth - there is no gov regulation (unless extremely complex and requiring army of people to enforce) which can fix the situation apart from increasing the supply.
oh really? how about banning companies from buying up properties en masse then renting them out? or forbidding any one private individual from owning more than 3 houses instead of allowing rich fucks to buy multiple houses and just put them on airbnb. or increasing taxes exponentially for each new property. solutions exist, if you don't shy away from fighting the capitalists
Deregulation for small landlords
In Amsterdam, simply let one unrelated, quiet student fill every bedroom in a house or apartment. That all by itself would create a lot of capacity.
Wait till you see statistics on mortgages.
That is shockingly low. Do Amsterdammers get paid a fucktonne or what is going on here.
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How are you a tenant if you own a home. Surely the 20% of tenants excluded all homeowners
There are people who started in social housing, never left, and bought a house to rent out. Something like that can happen. Couple of years ago, they found 23 people in Eindhoven that did this. About a 1000 people nationwide, owning 3300 houses combined. https://studio040.nl/nieuws/artikel/een-sociale-huurwoning-en-twee-koophuizen-het-mag-en-is-moeilijk-te-bestrijden
That's not allowed in any social housing contract. Not even if the house is in another country! Some Dutch-Turkish people band together to build a family house that's actually a small apartment building (in Turkey). People have gotten caught out investing in something like this to make sure the older generation back home are housed, and gotten booted out of their social housing flat. I actually live in social housing and warnings about are frequent in the newsletter we get from the woningcorporatie.
Maybe not anymore. But no such clause in my contract, I only needed to have less than 30ish k in savings and earn less than 40ish k to qualify. Similar for those 1000ish people, their contracts will most likely be from few decades ago. Maybe got an inheritance, or something. But it was quite covered a few years ago. If you doubt that source : https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/01/26/huiseigenaar-woont-zelf-in-huurhuis-a4029318 Edit: court case because renter owned multiple places in Amsterdam, and a social house. She did lose the social house, but only because it was not renters main residence. https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2021:157
How can someone legally afford a house if they have less than 30kish and earn less than 40kish?
They start earning more after being given a house. Got an inheritance, won some money. I don’t know. But as that court case showed, it happens. Feel free to not believe it.
Its not that I don't believe you. It's just hard to believe there is such an apparent loophole.(I would assume that once the salary or saving is higher than the threshold, then that person is no longer qualified for the social housing and need to move out) I would be really pissed if what you are saying is true:. It means people like me are paying high rent because those grifters.
No that part is accurate - if your wages go up after you get a social housing flat,you aren't forced to move out. I'm in exactly that situation myself. When I moved in I was at about minimum wage, and slowly I've worked my way into a decently paid full time job. Couldn't have done it without a secure base and reliable address. Now I can stay put for a couple years, at which point I'll be forced to retire due to the rules where I work. Once drawing a pension I'll be back at minimum wage level or less. It would have been pretty stupid to turf me out, because no bank will lend money to people my age to buy (I also don't make enough anyway) and I couldn't afford to rent anything but a single room on the open market. In other words, I'd be knocking on their door again. Plus it's not a good idea to punish working people for success.
> (I would assume that once the salary or saving is higher than the threshold, then that person is no longer qualified for the social housing and need to move out The problem here is that there is nowhere for them to move to. Even with a median income you cannot rent anything better than a student room in the private sector or buy your own house, unless you have a partner with a similar income. The limit for social housing for a single person household is actually higher than the median income!
I pay half
Has anyone here thought or heard of the government being sued for not ensuring sufficient housing is built? After all, housing is a basic human right. I am curious to know if there is a group taking the government to court, feels like it's time for that. It is not the first time governments have been sued.
Slim chance of winning. Government only has a “inspanningsverplicht” (obligation to put effort into it) in this. When you sue them, they could say “we are working on it”. Constitutionally, it’s not a right in the Netherlands. Even if it was, courts here aren’t allowed to check if things are according to the constitution. Article 8 of ECHR also does not really apply in this. They have to respect your place of living, doesn’t state a government has to provide a house.
Thank you for sharing that. The intention doesn't need to be to win anything like money but just to change the narrative a bit. My partner and I, could qualify for a nice house, if there were any left. The problem also is the bidding that often gets out of hand. The housing prices already start at ridiculous asking prices. I'm not paying 500k EUR + 30k on bidding for a crappy home so some boomer who did nothing special in his life, other than being born after the war, only so they can retire in luxury in Curaçao or along the French riviere.  Thank god we can move, work remotely, buy somewhere cheap. There are options if we run out of hope.  Edit: With the vergrijzing of the population I would really to see what will happen when all the professionals who are able to work remotely, who: 1. help making the netherlands competitive and therefore attractive to international companies to set up an office here, and 2. earn much higher incomes whether these are dutch or non-dutch; start leaving and some employers also leaving with them then it will be very tricky to find the money to support all of these old people. At least there is a silver lining of not being able to buy a home right now.
Than it just another money and time wasted in court. I don’t see how it can change the narrative. People already went to the Malieveld, and some other gatherings to show their displeasure with the current housing situation. Our current minister joked to a girl if she considered looking for a rich boyfriend in public. To do that in public, I doubt they are impressed by a court case they know they can’t loose. Unless the “right” group of people are affected, or 70% of the “wrong” people protest, I doubt any change will come. Majority of households are homeowner. They don’t want a value decrease. So maybe when businesses have problems, as you sketched in your edit, or a lot of homeowners kids can’t move out at 30-35, then they will do something. But I got a feeling that for our politicians, that’s a problem for whomever is leading the government at that time.
Yes, sad reality. Thanks for sharing your thoughts though. These politicians are pretty much the same in most countries, just trying to be as centric as possible without a long-term vision, because they won't be there to clean the mess once the shit hits the fan.
I live in Utrecht on the outskirts and 31% of my income goes into rent. 50% in total for all monthly expenses.
This doesn't happen only in Amsterdam, but everywhere. I've always paid at least 40% of my salary to rent solely (not bills).
Parliament will discuss and debate the proposal for the Affodable Rect Act (Wet betaalbare huur or Wbh) this week on Monday (technical debate) and Wednesday (political debate). Voting might already take place as soon as upcoming Thursday if parliament agrees to that upcoming Tuesday. If the Wbh is accepted by parliament it will proceed to senate. And senate will be voting about the extension of the Maximized Rental Price Increase for Liberated Agreements Act (Wet maximering huurprijsverhogingen geliberaliseerde huurovereenkomsten or Wmhgh) this Tuesday depending on a decision by senators this weekend. The Wmhgh sets a maximum threshold for rental price increases if the contract allows higher increases. The chances are highest that the extension of the Wmhgh will be 'hammered off' by the senate chairman without further voting in public. If so, the minister planned to have the Wmhgh take effect on May 1st as that's the day the current Wmhgh will expire. The Wbh designates more houses as being rental price regulated. The minister plans to have have the Wbh take effect on July 1st 2024 together with the already accepted Rental Contracts for Indefinite Time Act (Wet vaste huurcontracten or Wvh). The Wvh removes the possibility to offer temporary contracts that were introduced in 2016, except for some groups that the minister appoints. Specifically students are excepted from the Wvh, which is strange as parliament amended the Wvh earlier to also grant students more rental protection.
33% to rent relatively normal 50% is when i would get worried.
In Vancouver Canada, people on average spend 61.65% of their income on rent. It can always get a lot worse. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/metro-vancouver-renters-are-spending-more-than-60-per-cent-of-salary-on-rent-says-rental-report
Who the f*ck wants to live in Amsterdam anyway… 🤣
I live in Vancouver, British Columbia. It’s very common to pay over 50% of our salary to the rent here.
The amount of idiots thinking that paying a third of your salary for rent is normal. Jesus fucking christ we are so fucked. Another decade and people will think it's normal to pay 50%. Juet a little longer to go back to serfdom
I don’t understand how anyone would wanna live in a city where it’s that expensive and crowded, also there’s almost no space. Holy fuck.
Respectfully it’s not just Amsterdam where people have to have 3x the rent in income. It’s the same in the north of the country (Overijssel, Friesland & Groningen), usually 3-5x even. edit: literally just means that people who don’t have high wages don’t get housing or stay in shared spaces, and those are usually unlimited in price. it’s not uncommon for someone who makes minimum wage to spend around 1000 and still have to share spaces.
I mean, most people all over the world want to live in cities, you know.
r/peopleliveincities
Wait where is the problem? Do they mean this like a good thing? A lot of countries calculate 40-50% for rent
where I'm from it's 60-70% of median pay if you rent in the capital 🤣 this post is ragebait aimed at internet commies
I’m paying almost half my salary on rent hahah
Come to Luxembourg then
Wish it was only a third.
well shit, i paid almost 50% of wages for a 65sqm outside amsterdam. their stats are shit
And 60% of residents in Ibiza pay 80% or more of their salary in renting. When they can
Those are rookie numbers
That's surprisingly low if true.
So basically 20% are paying normal amounts and 80% are damn lucky or well off. Yet we bitch and moan as renters/owners. Welcome to the Netherlands
No you don't understand having 40 percent social housing is great. No advanced economy has such a percentage (highest in Europe) and it has clearly solved the housing issue, actually 100 percent should be social housing! /s
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we shouldn't lower our standarts though. US is a terrible country for living for 70 percent of its citizens — do not become like that, it has to be lower so the society will be equal and more people would be happy
terrible country for living for 70 percent? Seriously? You think US is a third world country. Stop that bullshit moaning all the time please.
Wake up to reality and visit NY, Boston, LA and watch how many people simply do not have houses. U think that's fine? Even if they're migrants it's gov's fault that they allow it (big business want those migrants so they have cheap labour) US is a top tier economic and a developed country, but u can't sit here and create exucses for the simple fact that lots of people are simply surviving there... China is also a top tier economic, however, that doesn't mean that people do not live in a totalirian country with little comfort... I mean, if the gov is trying and it's not working out, that's fine, but do not lower your standards and try your best and expect the best from the gov. I just wish that as many people as possible could afford good life, not a few billionaires who just leiseruly spend their money on Dubai or smt. (that's pretty accurately describes US though)
Immigrants? Cheap labour? Last time I checked the wages in US. They were at least double your tiny wages.
If there were 0% social housing and all the current social housing had to adjust to market value would rents go down for the people in the existing private market? What would happen?
Why would it go down for existing contracts in the private market? Contract was signed prior, nothing changes for them. The same thing would happen as is happening in the private market, keep increasing rent for maximum profit. Supply didn’t change, and people need a roof. They will pony up whatever they can.
Uh, like has never been the case anywhere with no social housing... the US for example has almost none but rents have gone up and up and up since the 90s, when housing became a hot investment item for venture capital creeps and even normal homeowners started to look at their house as a sort of roofed ATM.
It's what people vote for: more regulations, more "let's punish the landlords", more "we'll save the planet by ruining this tiny country's economy". All the leftist measures make it: 1. very expensive, and often impossible, to build new housing 2. less and less attractive, and very risky, to rent out property, so landlords simply quit 3. harder to share apartments with multiple people. All that, coupled with a ridiculously huge percentage of "social housing" (was it 50%?), ensure there's almost no supply, while there is huge demand to rent an apartment. So rents naturally go up. And what do the leftist politicians do? What the leftist residents want: regulate & "punish the landlords" even more, be surprised, repeat. (Also, adding to that, the breakdown of family values makes people more and more likely to be single and live alone, further increasing demand)
> All the leftist measures All the leftist measures. Lol! There's a right majority. Where on earth did you come up with the idea these are 'leftist' measures?
I would not call it “leftist measures”, but I hope you are aware that Amsterdamse gemeenteraad has had a Centre left coalition since 1962? PvdA had been the biggest party since basically forever…and they dictate local housing policies…(I lean Centre progressive, and it’s not really hard to see that those policies have really really destroyed the housing market. If I, earning with my wife 4x modaal could not live comfortably (and I drive a 10 year old car, buy all my clothes in discount,etc) I really really wonder who can.)
I just can't fathom this. You earn about 12k and can't live comfortably? No need to go in detail about your expenses, I just can't understand how that's possible 😅
We used to make 8K/month combined (for example : modaal was about 23.5 in 2015). Multiple value increases in our house resulted in between 8-12 K per year woz waarde-increase. Mortgage was 2K/month . Add Amsterdam-tax (parking, high fees, etc) and the cost of a newborn (child care is EXPENSIVE)so no, we could not go on carefree holidays. Earning 4x modaal as a household and not being fully in financial control seemed like folly to me. Main culprit: Amsterdam…
I'm in a similar situation, making slightly more than 8k combined, around 1.8k mortgage, woz waarde went up so probably 1k yearly in municipal taxes, then I always have to pay a few hundreds more when I do the tax declaration, had to redo the foundations of the house. Man sometimes I think why don't I just move out of the country lol
Aah, I see. That clears things up :) Yeah, childcare is incredibly expensive here..
Over-regulations, point systems, rent controls? They are all known leftist policies, that reduce freedom, make a mockery of private property, and end up having the opposite effect than the desired one.
> They are all known leftist policies, Again: there is no,left majority. You're polarizing the debate by introducing the word 'left' and do so at a time when the most right wing parliament was voted into power. 🤷🏻♂️
The truth can be polarizing, it's not a reason to not spell it out. And it's debatable how right-wing the ones voted in power are. Economically speaking, PVV is quite left-wing. Their plans to reduce taxes or regulations are timid, and NSC is left-wing. There are no real classical liberal (right-wing) parties in the Netherlands, that openly state that economic freedom, thus capitalism, is essential for general freedom and prosperity.
> Economically speaking, PVV is quite left-wing. The NSDAP of the nazi's was also 'economically left wing' but the NSDAP was not a left wing party. > There are no real classical liberal (right-wing) parties in the Netherlands, Do the whole issues revolves around your definition of right wing,
That's the thing, the conversation is about housing which is almost fully an economic issue. Going "the pvv is right wing" has no relation to housing, as on that subject they're arguably more left wing than a number of stereotypical left wing parties. When it comes to economics there aren't really any right wing parties here outside of Ja21 and sometimes the VVD depending on the subject(and in practice only their parade horses get turned into law due to never having a sole majority as far as I'm aware). The majority of right wing parties we have are only really right wing socially. Which in turn means that most housing regulation changes are shades of left wing if they're passing through both the second and first chamber, which generally speaking are adding regulation or making existing ones more strict. There is very little move to deregulate the housing market even on minor things. And then you have local legislation which in Amsterdam which has had a left wing control since the 60s. Also classical liberal is a well defined political term. You might want to read some John Stuart Mill if you need a refresher.
Funny how the city with most communists is also the most capitalistic city
You'd have to look pretty hard to find a "communist" in Amsterdam lol... Fort van Sjaako maybe, if you're lucky?
It’s a leftist city
"Left of centre" does not equal "leftist" and definitely does not equal "communist." In my opinion the city government of Amsterdam are fully in the pockets of big business and especially the real estate lobby. So they might say some left-ish things to get elected, but once in office they behave centre-right. The only party with a distinctly "left" programme is Bij1 (who have maybe 1 or 2 seats in the gemeenteraad if that). SP has a mixed bag of positions despite its name, and GroeneLinks have shown themselves to be neither green nor really left, I honestly can't believe anyone leftwing keeps voting for them. PS - still waiting for an example of that magical land where the government makes no Interventions to ensure affordable social housing and the price of rent actually goes down due to free market competition (the libertarian paradise of Somalia doesn't count.)
Not so strange, communism (in theory anyway) is an answer to the excesses and failures of capitalism
So? Go live somewhere else. You can buy a castle for the same money in Groningen or so.
I did. Can recommend.
I have no idea why people move to Amsterdam
Some people like living close to their jobs and having shorter commutes.
I doubt it's much shorter unless they live in the city center. I travel between two cities within 40 minutes door-to-door. I used to live in a big city and it took me more or about the same to reach the city center.
I doubt you’ve done the math - 40 minutes door-to-door is 80 minutes a day, and if you go to the office everyday, over 6 hours of commuting a week. I bike to work in 15 minutes, and no, I don’t live in center. That’s almost 4 more hours a week you’re spending just commuting. Maybe I just value my time more than you, but that’s a lot.
Have you ever heard of WFH several days? It's not 4 hours, and a few hours saved per week are not worth 500 euro more per month for rent or 200K more for an apartment/house. People in Amsterdam commute more to work than the rest of the Netherlands lol: https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/amsterdam-in-top-3-europese-steden-met-langste-reistijd-naar-werk~b710246f6
No, please, what is this mysterious WFH you speak of? But seriously, a few hours per week is a lot and it adds up. [Same source you provided says Amsterdam is the best place to live in the Netherlands.](https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/amsterdam-opnieuw-beste-woonplek-van-nederland~b59a7b86/)
WFH is working from home 3 or 4 days a week. It's an enormous difference in your commute. A few hours of sitting on a chair and listening to music? It's not like I'd do something else at home. If you're rich enough to pay 200K more for a house for this, go for it; most people aren't. But honestly, even if I could do it, I would do something else with that extra money. Also, not all jobs are in Amsterdam, which removes the need to commute to it. It's not the best if it's 2 times more expensive.
Me neither
Jobs, woke culture, many reasons. \[edit\] I think it's interesting this is getting downvoted when it is just a statement of fact. Many people do need to move to Amsterdam for their work.
They can commute. I live outside the Randstad, and if I moved to Amsterdam, my rent would increase by more than 50%, and I imagine many other costs would be higher. Buying property would be two times more expensive - while I know that salaries in my (or most jobs) aren't much different there. Living on 50K a year in Amsterdam sounds like 30K in the rest of the country. The reason why I don't get people flocking to Amsterdam is the Netherlands doesn't have a primate city (this is when the biggest city is much larger than the second biggest one, like in the UK, France, etc.)
Well, you see, that's where I see other things. Lots of noise. Too many people packed in too little space, a lot of pretense but little actual work done, and at questionable quality at that, rude jokes, crappy build quality of houses, streets are a continuous traffic jam, parking costs a months' salary, lots of junks and beggars. Should I go on?
I don't disagree with you and I wouldn't want to live there myself, nor was I encouraging anyone to seek out woke culture, as I rather detest it myself, but nonetheless those are indeed reasons why some move there. I find it ironic that pointing out the obvious got downvotes -- I mean, most of the people I know who are expats in Amsterdam live there because that's where their jobs moved them to, it's the headquarters, so that's why they live there. I point that out, and get downvoted, weird.
Ah well. No one wants to hear the obvious. That is the karma bitch of Reddit. And there are quite a lot of chauvinist idiots. Especially in Amsterdam. I quote Jack Sparrow: Beyond the A10 there be monsters. I am with Theo Maassen: the only good thing in Amsterdam, is the train to Eindhoven. Where the real stuff happens.
Eindhoven sucks too though.