How to Purchase a House at Netherlands ?
Hi everyone 👋,
I will share my experience on buying a house at Netherlands today 🥳. Definitely, it’s a big and scary step for anyone. I am planning to ease your confusion and provide a guide to you with this article.
Like all other investments, buying a house requires time, patience and detailed investigations. Rushing on this topic will always turns out bad. In order to make the best choice, you have to be sure on your payment capabilities and also you should consider your future plans.
Reasoning
First thing first… Let’s make a initial check around the city to become familiar with different districts, famous locations, restaurants, schools, clinics, parks and the nature 🐝 🔍. We need a portal for this so we will use Funda.
I strongly suggest you to spend 1–2 weeks to get familiar with the prices for your target area before having any more steps. This stage will refine your thoughts on homes, districts, maybe even cities. If I give you an example from my experience, I started my search at Amsterdam with a huge motivation but after a while I decided to buy from Almere 😇.
Although Amsterdam is the capital, it brings some issues with it. Every shiny thing has a bad/dark side isn’t it ? 😅. I spent my first year at De Pijp which is probably one of the well known iconic district of Amsterdam. Apartments are builded with a narrow scheme and they are mostly small. Having an extra space will be your #1 dream and you will have to fight for your parking spot hard 🅿️. I am not even talking about private parking 😖. You will exercise and enhance your hiking skills during the day with narrow and sharp upright dutch stairs of your home 🧗.
Jokes aside, there is also nice options too but these options cost you more than you can imagine 💸. Basically, if you have enough 💰, you will be happy and live pain free at everywhere 🍻.
Rather than apartments, If you consider purchasing a row house or detached one, you can find really cosy homes at neighbour cities around the capital. My house (row house, 3 flats, 5 rooms, huge bad garden and a shed) is just 25 mins away from Amsterdam central and cost lower than 55 m2 apartment in Amsterdam. Considering reliable train network, there was no reason left on staying at Amsterdam for me🏡.
I am trying to say, personal preferences may vary. Maybe the winner will be Amsterdam, The Hague or Harlem for you 🏆 🥇.
Payment Capabilities and your Mortgage Limit
After refining your options, you will finalise your target district but should you apply for all homes which you like ? Answer is no🙅♂️. For sake of your time and motivation, you should focus on financially possible options. You can visit ABN AMRO’s mortgage calculator to see your mortgage limit.
You can make an appointment with an ABN AMRO advisor to learn personal clauses, rates and offers. That advisor will be assigned to you, to help you during the process. You can ask mortgage related any question during the meeting or via email anytime. Establishing this connection earlier as possible will be game changer for your process. (Working with a mortgage advisor is mandatory for buyers)
Addition to mortgage advisor, you can also hire your own broker to ease further processes. Broker is not mandatory for buyers but if you don’t have enough time to adjust all of these, they will help you in return of their service cost. (Costs may vary between ~2000 and ~10000 euros broker to broker)
Application
After seeing your mortgage limit, you can apply for an appointment for houses within your mortgage limit. This is the stage of home hunting 🏹. I suggest you to check funda daily and apply for an appointment for matching homes as soon as possible. If the appointment queue gets longer, brokers are ignoring calls and messages 🥹.
You will eventually get a reply and you will join a viewing. During that time you can ask all of your questions about the home and nearby around. You can also checkout my cheat sheet below 👇
Checklist for viewing:
- Which direction the house is facing ?
- Receiving sun light during the day will eliminate moisture issues
- Having a nice air flow is also important for ventilation - What is the energy label of the property?
(Better energy label means that you will burn less for heating during the winter so you will pay less 💸 Fyi gas prices are insane 🤯) - Are the windows double glazed ?
- Which heating system is used for the property ? (Gas / Electric / Central)
(If your heating system is consuming gas, it can be an issue for you during winter. Gas prices are increasing for each year so most of the home owners are preferring to replace their system with electric ones. Netherlands government is also planning to eliminate gas dependency for residents by 2030 so builders won’t be able to construct homes with gas heating systems after that. If you have a gas system in your home right now, you will have time to replace it. Deadline is 2050 🥹) - What are the utility costs?
- What was the average heating cost during the last winter ?
- Water, electricity and internet depends on your usage. - Is water pressure is enough and sufficient ?
(Water pressure can be a problem if you are looking an apartment above 3rd floor. I suggest you to go to kitchen and validate the water pressure so maybe you can consider to negotiate on water booster) - Is there a fiber optic internet connection for the property ?
- Is there a storage place that belongs to the property ?
- Is there any urgent renovation need ? If so, what will be the cost of it ?
(You can encounter this during the viewing. If there is a broken part or a malfunction on any device. You can use it for your advantage on bargaining) - Verify Cadastral Status of the property
(If the property provides full ownership, you will purchase both the house and the land. if not, you will purchase only the house and you will be obligated to pay yearly land rent to land owner. You can purchase cadastral status document of any property paying 1–2 euros.) - What is the WOZ value of the property ?
(Each municipality checks the houses and decides on their market value for taxation. This value depends on multiple aspects. Renovations will increase total value of the house and also it’s WOZ value) - What is the “Walter living” estimation value for the property ?
(Walter Living is a platform that calculates approximate market value of the houses. Don’t accept that value as legitimate but it will help you on your estimations) - Is the property belong to free or social sector ?
(Netherlands government applies renting and selling limits for social sector properties) - Is there “Chamber of Commerce” fee ?
(Some properties are linked to chamber of commerce so if you purchase one of that properties, you will be obligated to pay a yearly contribution) - Is it protected house ?
(Some properties are accepted as a national heritage. if you purchase one of that properties, you can not renovate outside visual parts and also you are obligated to protect it as it is. It can cost more than you think when the maintenance period if arrived) - What is the VVE contribution per month ?
(VVE is an organisation which is responsible for the general maintenance of the building. Each apartment owner will be part of this committee and the contributions will be collected to fulfil common costs: Building insurance, stair renovation, roof maintenance, paintings or etc.) - How much money is in VVE reserve fund ?
(if there is already collected fund in VVE reserve fund, you will be free of charge for big expenses. For example, roof maintenance can cost easily 20K euros 💸🤯) - Is there a debt from previous owner ? (to tax authorities, to VVE or etc.)
(If you purchase the property with debt, you will be the responsible. You need to extract these costs on buying price) - Is there any stuff included on draft agreement ? What is their states?
(Washing machine, fridge, freezer, dishwasher, oven, electric/gas hub, extractor hood, floor planks, wardrobes, fireplace or etc.)
Giving an Offer
You are getting into the most important stage now, giving an offer 🕊️. You don’t have to make an offer for each property you have joined it’s viewing. If you are happy on the information you collected during viewing, then feel free to make an offer considering couple points below:
- What was the WOZ value of the property ?
- What was the “Walter Living” evaluation result ?
Brokers will try to push you as much as possible so don’t fall this trap. Asking price will be mostly higher than the WOZ value. If the “Walter Living” result reasonable and WOZ value is close to asking price, you can give it a chance 🏹
I will tell you my secret 🤫. If all of the aspects meet the checklist, I was offering at most 10.000 euros more than the WOZ value. Not 1 cents more !! Considering global market and house prices, that difference will be paid off by itself within 1 to 2 years at most.
Another point, if you give a not reasonable offers, bank may reject to pay that amount for that property. They have to be sure on that purchase will guarantee itself by time.
Mortgage Verification
If your offer is accepted, you need to verify your offer with your mortgage advisor quickly. If it checks out, you can apply for an appraisal report (I took it from Maatwerk). This report will cost you ~600 euros 💶 but it will show you the exact market value of the property. If your mortgage advisor also approves the appraisal report, you can sign your purchase agreement.
Purchase agreement is a binding draft agreement before going notary. You have to be sure on what you are signing !! Read carefully and check out all little quotes and sections one by one.
Your mortgage advisor will ask for some documents which can be collected digitally to prepare your mortgage fund. Mortgage approval may take 1–2 weeks in total after your documents are collected. If you provide this documents quickly, you can get your approval earlier.
While waiting for your mortgage approval, you can search for a notary to finalise this purchase. You can apply to the closest notary with some of your documents. They will set up a meeting for a date that suits both sides considering your mortgage approval 🤩.
Procedures are almost done !! Time to wait for your signing day 🥳 🏡.
Notary
You will attend notary meeting to sign your contract to finalise your purchase. Notary will guide you on every step and they will provide a translator if you don’t know Dutch (all legal forms has to be in Dutch). After having an agreement and signatures, notary will use his permission to withdraw the funds from your mortgage loan account and personal account (if there is an additional cost) to pay buyer, broker and notary costs. Your mortgage officially will be started at that day.
From January 1, 2021, people aged 18–35 who are buying their first property in the Netherlands will not have to pay the transfer tax. You will automatically save %2 of purchasing price 😲
You will be informed on all different type of expenses on your notary receipt. This receipt will contain some marked expenses which will be used on your annual tax refund so you should keep it safe and protected🔒.
During following week, notary will also inform cadaster authorities in terms of your purchase so the house and the land will be registered on your name.
Congratulations, you are the new owner now 🎊
Moving In
Purchase is done 🚀 so it’s time search for service providers now. There is a lot of service providers at Netherlands so you can pick one of them which provides you the best offer.
I will share the details on my service providers below ⬇️:
- Vattenfall for heating + electricity (my house is equipped with central heating).
- Vitens for cold water. (you can checkout water providers for your residence through this link)
- Ziggo for internet connection. (Checkout KPN too)
- My house doesn’t have gas connection but Vattenfall also provides this for some areas.
You need to update your primary address information on your bank and on e-commerce websites or etc. You don’t want to send some presents to your old address 😉
Finally, you should apply for an appointment for closest GP to move your registration.
Party Time 🥳 🥂
Congratulations, you completed all of these steps and you have purchased your property at Netherlands 🇳🇱. It’s time to give a party to celebrate the news at your new address with your friends and colleagues.
I hope my experience guide you well 🙌. If you see it helpful don’t forget to leave a like and share it with your friends 🍻
I am always down for a coffee ☕️ 😉 You can follow the link below to give support to my work 🙌
If you are curious about immigration processes at Netherlands, you can also checkout the article below 👇. I shared my experience on immigration step by step like a guide 😉
Cheers 🥂
