Research Task. Looking for Housing
In this chapter, you learned of the various difficulties associated with finding suitable housing. In this assignment, you will go through the process of looking for an apartment in Amsterdam with various budgets and income levels. You will look for an apartment with a high, middle, and low budget. Then, you will write a short reflection of about 350 words expressing how the apartment search experience was different with each budget. You do not need to pay for any services or actually contact any landlords to complete this assignment. It is simply a superficial inquiry about the online offer.
Some questions to consider for your reflection are: Did a language barrier make the search more difficult? How were your options more or less limited with each budget? Did you find one situation more or less enjoyable and/or frustrating? How did the quality of homes starkly differ between the options? Is there anything that surprised you about this process?
Requirements of the apartment:
The lease must be long-term (1 year +)
The apartment must have basic amenities like a toilet, shower and a kitchen
Make sure to pay special attention to requirements set by the landlord, for example, no students, pets, internationals, or monthly income minimums. You may need to use Google translate or other translations services for the descriptions. Consider the elements of the language barriers someone looking for housing may experience.
To aid your search consider looking at these websites:
Situation 1:
You run a successful start-up and have a basically unlimited budget. You would like to find a luxurious place to fit your luxurious lifestyle. You appreciate amenities like gyms, pools, or saunas being nearby or in the building. You recently purchased a nice sports car, so parking is a must. It’s very important for you to be no more than 3KM from the city centre. You would like a spacious apartment of at least 150m2 for yourself and your cat Pogo.
Monthly net income: 30,000€
Budget: 9,000€ per month
Situation 2:
You and your partner are looking for a place for yourselves and your new-born baby. You’re both from Turkey and work as mid-level employees for a mid-sized company. Neither of you speaks Dutch but hope your child can access a good school nearby. It is very important to you that you live in a quiet, safe neighbourhood. Since you probably can’t afford a house with a yard, you would like to be near a park so your child can play outside. You don’t have much furniture, so a furnished place is ideal. You don’t own a car, but thankfully commuting by bike is so easy in the Netherlands. Still, you don’t want to bike too much each day and therefore would like an apartment no more than 7.5KM from the city centre. You would like to have at least 2 bedrooms, and ample living space in case you need to work from home. Therefore, it’s important your apartment be at least 120m2.
Combined monthly net income: 4,000€
Budget: 1,600€
Situation 3:
You just moved to Amsterdam from Italy to pursue your master’s degree. You took a gap year between your bachelors to work and save money for rent, and your parents will help you by sending you 200€ per month which you plan to use for groceries and other expenses. To help with the rest of the costs, you plan to work at a nearby café 8-10 hours a week which will provide you a small additional source of income. You are only looking for a room, but you need something big enough to fit your bed and desk. Therefore, it must be at least 10m2. You would prefer to live in a studio but would be willing to share an apartment with one or two other people. Since you don’t know how to ride a bike, it’s important that your apartment is near a bus station and no more than 4KM from the city centre.
Monthly net income: 0€
Budget: 425€