Mortgages
A Dutch mortgage through an expat's eyes, or how the bank decides whether you deserve a home
The real question isn't whether the bank will give you a mortgage, but how much. Why a permanent contract is worth hundreds of thousands, whether you can buy with nothing down, and how the bank actually counts your income.
There’s a moment nearly every expat goes through. One fine day you open your banking app. You look at your monthly rent, then at your salary, then back at the rent — and you ask: “Why haven’t I bought a place yet?”
That’s how you’re introduced to the Dutch mortgage.
Not “will they lend to me” but “how much”
Most expats are sure the big question is: will the bank give me a mortgage? In fact the real question is a different one: exactly how much is the bank willing to give me?
In the Netherlands plenty of people get a mortgage — but almost nobody gets as much as they’d like. That’s an important distinction.
The first date with your mortgage adviser
It usually goes something like this. You state your income and announce, proudly: “We’d like a house for about a million.”
The adviser opens a calculator, does some sums, does them again, stares at the screen, and delivers the verdict: the bank will give you 720,000.
This is the moment many people first grasp the difference between what you want and what you can have. The favourite line of the IT crowd: “But look how much I earn!”
Yes — but the bank sees the world a little differently. What matters to the bank is: what kind of contract you have right now; whether you’re still on probation; how much of your income is officially confirmed; whether you have bonuses; whether you have debts, alimony, student loans, and so on — and only then the size of your salary.
Sometimes a programmer earning €120,000 a year is offered a smaller mortgage than a colleague on a more modest income but with flawless paperwork.
The magic of the permanent contract
For expats, the permanent contract has an almost mystical significance. On the day their permanent contract comes through, many start to feel wealthier — even though their salary hasn’t changed by a single euro. It’s just that the bank now looks at them with far more affection.
It’s one of the few situations in life where a single piece of paper is genuinely worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
”Can I get a mortgage with nothing down?”
You can — and this is usually what surprises people most. In the Netherlands the bank can finance up to 100% of a property’s market value, and some clients have even managed to get the bank to cover their purchase costs on top.
Expats from the former USSR often start looking for the catch. And there is one — you’ll need to pay for:
- the estate agent;
- the mortgage adviser;
- the notary, and a translator at their office;
- the property valuation;
- the technical survey;
- sometimes a bank guarantee.
So you’ll still need cash — just not in the amounts many people are used to.
”Will my bonus count?”
An expat and their bonus is a genre of conversation all its own. Some banks count bonuses, some count them in part, some take an average over several years — after which people with an annual bonus the size of a small flat suddenly develop a keen interest in accountancy.