Find a place

Helpful information, tips and tricks to find a place in Utrecht

So you’ve arrived in the city which you want to call home. You now need to find yourself an awesome place!

We’re not gonna sugarcoat it, you’re gonna need some time and a bit of luck! Together with a million other people: students, professionals and families you could be on the hunt for a while. Utrecht is one of the most sort after cities to live in, here in The Netherlands. From experience we know that being a foreigner doesn’t always work in your favour when it comes to finding a place to live. But don’t worry, we’re here to help.

Depending on your budget and reason for your being here, study or work, there are a few ways to bag your perfect ‘new home’.

Students or low budget

You’ll need to attend something the Dutchies call a ‘Hospiteeravond’. This is where; if you’re showing interest in a place there is a possibility you ‘might’ be invited to attend an evening at your potential new home, to meet your potential new roomies. There can be anything from 5 to 25 people there who are all competing for the same room as you. Mostly there is a general introduction round where you tell a bit about yourself and get to know a bit about the people you could be living with. It all comes down to whether you fit in well with the rest of the house, so don’t worry too much if you don’t get picked; it’s nothing personal (Dutchies also struggle with this).

So, are you ready for the challenge?!

www.kamernet.nl is a paid website and very popular amongst people searching for a place to live here (Note: all in Dutch). Another option which you don’t need to pay for is Facebook, there are plenty of groups and pages which you can join just by searching:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/234214686628695/?ref=ts&fref=ts  https://www.facebook.com/groups/234214686628695/?fref=ts
You’ll see that a lot of the posts are in Dutch but you can always translate these, or get yourself a Dutch friend :). Feel free to post on the wall of the group once you’re a member to let everybody know what you’re looking for, you might get lucky, someone might contact you. Personally we would advise to try and steer clear of agencies. There are quite a lot of hidden costs involved when going through them, not to mention a large agency fee on them successfully finding you a place.