Students lose shared rooms to studios as landlords sell

Small private landlords are selling off cheap, shared housing that students depend on, new figures from the land registry Kadaster show.

Across the Dutch cities with a university, these private landlords cut the number of homes they rent out by 19% on average over three years, according to NRC, which reported the figures.

Bigger property companies bought and built enough to keep the total number of rental homes almost steady, and student cities are attractive to investors, but these tend to be smaller studios rather than shared houses.

For a student hunting a room, that means there are likely fewer affordable shared rooms and more competition.

Hardest on internationals
International students are hardest hit by this, as they cannot join the years-long waiting lists for social housing, which the Kadaster figures don’t include, and often have to rent from abroad without seeing the room first.

That leaves them relying on the private market, which is shrinking, and more exposed to scams and overcharging.

It is not the same everywhere though – the number of rental homes actually rose in Amsterdam, Leiden and Eindhoven, while The Hague and Utrecht saw the steepest falls.

The national shortage stood at 21,500 rooms last year, and more students are giving up the search and staying with their parents, according to student housing centre Kences, which has linked the sell-off to lost rooms. Its next report is due on September 3.

Housing minister Elanor Boekholt-O’Sullivan this week asked councils to be more flexible about shared student houses, after 10 students in Groningen faced eviction because their council would not treat them as one household.