How Russian-speaking IT expats buy their first home in the Netherlands

There’s a moment that comes to almost every expat. It usually strikes somewhere between your third pay rise and yet another letter from your landlord announcing a rent increase.

You look at your monthly rent and suddenly utter the sacred words: “Maybe it’s time to buy?” That’s how a Russian-speaking IT specialist’s journey onto the Dutch property market begins — after a stint of renting, naturally.

Stage one: the calculator

Before buying, all expats fall into two categories: those who’ve already opened a mortgage calculator, and those who’ll open one tonight. Then comes a remarkable discovery: it turns out the monthly mortgage payment is sometimes lower than the rent. At which point mild shock sets in.

— Hang on. So I could pay less, and the flat would be mine?

In theory — yes. In practice — welcome to the next level of difficulty.

Amsterdam through a renter’s eyes, and a buyer’s

When you’re renting, Amsterdam feels big. The moment you start buying, it suddenly becomes very small. Because the budget that looked so solid yesterday starts running out with suspicious speed.

Especially after your mortgage adviser says:

— Your maximum mortgage is around 650,000.

In your head there was already a handsome canal, tall windows and a terrace. The market replies:

— Here’s a lovely 58-square-metre flat. And another 80 people would like to buy it.

Your love for Amsterdam ends at viewing number twenty

For most expats the path looks the same.

• Week one: Amsterdam only.
• Week three: actually, Amstelveen isn’t bad.
• Week six: Haarlem is a very charming town.
• Week eight: so what’s the deal with Almere, anyway?

By the tenth viewing, many suddenly become experts in the rail network. Because it turns out that twenty minutes on the train is worth roughly 200,000–300,000 euros less.

The IT specialist’s favourite question

— But is it a good investment?

The occupational instinct of techies makes them see a flat as an asset. Spreadsheets, scenarios, yield, ROI, comparisons with ETFs, Excel files with sixteen tabs.

At some point I have to remind them: you’re not buying a data centre, you’re buying a place to live. Sometimes a flat with a view of the park does more for your quality of life than an extra 0.8% annual return in a spreadsheet.

What a programmer actually looks at

An ordinary buyer looks at the flat. A programmer looks at:

• the internet speed;
• the number of power sockets;
• room for a second monitor;
• the soundproofing;
• the Wi-Fi quality by the desk.

The kitchen may be a secondary matter. But a separate study can decide the whole deal. Since the pandemic, the home office has become the new bedroom. Sometimes even more important than the bedroom.

Meeting the old Dutch housing stock

For many expats, the first encounter with the old Dutch housing stock goes like this.

In the photos: a charming house from 1928. At the viewing: creaking floors, uneven walls, windows that have outlived several generations of tenants — sticking, warped and dried out.

After which the question arises:

— Is this… normal?

Yes. Very often it is. In the Netherlands a house can be older than the State of Israel and still cost a million euros.

The magic letters: VvE

Sooner or later every apartment buyer hears these three letters: VvE. And a new stage of growing up begins.

It suddenly turns out you’re not just buying a flat. You’re also buying a share of the building — and, thrown in for free, your neighbours. And along with them:

• meeting minutes;
• annual accounts;
• maintenance plans;
• the reserve fund;
• endless discussions about the windows, the roof and the lift.

Some VvEs are run like Swiss clockwork. Others resemble a residents’ meeting in a Soviet stairwell. The documents need to be read very carefully — sometimes more carefully than the purchase contract itself.

The survey and the list of thirty defects

Your offer’s been accepted, you’ve paid for the survey, and you head to it half-hoping to be told: don’t buy this flat.

The surveyor, smiling pleasantly, tells you the flat is good — but here’s a list of thirty defects. In shock, you ask the sellers’ agent for a discount, and you’re told: the flat isn’t new-build, it’s sold as is. You decide to push harder — the seasoned buyers in your property chat told you to — and you’re informed that, in agreement with the seller, the flat is going to another candidate.

There’s essentially no such thing as a perfect property. There are only different levels of compromise.

A contact sport

But the most painful moment is this one. Suppose you’ve found the flat. You’ve made your offer. You wait. A day later a message arrives:

— Unfortunately, the seller has chosen another buyer.

This is the moment many people first learn that buying a home in the Netherlands is a contact sport. Especially in Amsterdam.

When your first acceptance finally comes, it usually arrives after several lost properties. The buyer starts to think differently. Instead of “I want the perfect flat,” it becomes “I want a flat I’ll be happy in for the next 7–10 years.”

That’s a very important shift. Because perfect flats don’t exist. Any more than perfect employers do — something people in IT understand especially well.

The expat’s favourite fear

— What if the market crashes right after I buy?

Almost everyone asks this. The answer usually pleases no one: nobody knows. If anyone could genuinely predict the property market, they’d have been living on their own yacht somewhere near Monaco long ago (the author now bows her head sadly — no yacht, and no Monaco, on the horizon any time soon).

Most people don’t buy a home because they perfectly timed the market cycle. They buy because they need somewhere to live for the next ten years.

The valuation for the mortgage

That’s a chapter of its own. I’ll put it this way: a good agent knows this figure before the offer goes in. The valuation should never come as a shock or a surprise.

The valuation is simply what the property is worth today — in other words, what the appraiser values it at, based on identical properties of the same size and specification sold nearby, recently. It can, however, differ from the purchase price — higher or lower — if you made your bid without consulting a valuer or a specialist.

The final stage

The signing at the notary. Getting the keys. The first evening in a flat of your own.

The boxes still aren’t unpacked. The internet still isn’t connected. A lone kettle sits on the floor. And at that moment many people say the very same thing:

— We should have done this sooner.