Selling
How Russian-speaking expats sell up in Amsterdam and go off to live a 'normal life'
After 7–10 years in Amsterdam comes the moment: 'we've decided to move.' On the great Dutch exodus to the suburbs, the new cult of the home office, and why real integration is selling your Amsterdam flat of your own free will.
There’s a particular type of client. They’ve usually lived in the Netherlands for 7–10 years. A successful career. A good salary. Their own flat in Amsterdam. Children. A dog. Sometimes two.
And one day they call me and say:
— We’ve decided to move.
Asked where, the answer is usually:
— Anywhere, as long as it’s not Amsterdam.
Amsterdam stops being the dream
When an expat first arrives in the Netherlands, Amsterdam seems perfect. Canals. Bicycles. Museums. Cafés. That international atmosphere.
A few years on, a new reality sets in. The kids have to be driven to school. The dog has to be walked. The car has to be parked somewhere. The groceries have to be paid for. And the neighbour upstairs has, for some reason, decided to take up the drums.
And it suddenly turns out that the romance of the canals takes up about 3% of your life. The other 97% is ordinary domestic logistics.
The great Dutch exodus
Practically every Russian-speaking expat follows the same route.
First: “Amsterdam only.” Then: “Amstelveen is fine too.” A few years later: “Haarlem is a very pleasant town.” A year after that: “So what’s Hilversum like?”
Then come viewings of houses in Ede, Amersfoort, Arnhem, Zwolle or Apeldoorn. And a remarkable discovery follows: it turns out that, for the price of a three-room flat in Amsterdam, you can buy a proper house. With a garden. With parking. With an attic. With a storage room. And still have money left over for a new kitchen.
The first trip to “the provinces”
For most families it looks the same. They come to view a house. They open the front door. They walk into the living room. They look at the garden. Then they look at the garden again. Then once more. After which they ask:
— Is all of this included in the price?
Yes. All of it is included in the price.
At this point many begin to suspect they’ve spent the last few years living rather more cramped than they needed to.
The great enemy of moving
No, it isn’t the mortgage. And it isn’t selling the flat. The great enemy is called: “But work is in Amsterdam.”
This goes on until the person opens Google Maps and discovers that the train from Arnhem to Amsterdam takes about as long as their old commute across Amsterdam itself once did, by bike, tram and metro. After that, the psychological barrier begins to crumble.
What families look for after Amsterdam
What’s interesting is how sharply the requirements change. When people buy their first home, the list usually looks like this:
- near the centre;
- near the metro;
- near restaurants;
- near the action.
Ten years later the list becomes a different one:
- quiet;
- parking;
- a good neighbourhood;
- a decent school;
- room for a home office;
- a garden;
- ideally another study as well.
Square metres suddenly matter more than the number of coffee shops nearby.
The new cult: the home study
Where expats once dreamed of a flat near the office, the dream now looks different. A separate room. A door. Quiet. Internet. And the ability to shut yourself away from the children during a video call.
For many IT specialists it’s precisely the home office that becomes the deciding factor in a move. Sometimes they change city for its sake.
Selling the Amsterdam flat
The nicest part of the whole story. While the buyers are driving around to viewings and fretting, the seller suddenly discovers that their flat is of interest to more or less everyone. Viewings appear. Offers. Negotiations.
And that familiar feeling others used to have. Now it’s no longer they who wait on the seller’s decision — now the sellers wait on theirs. The karma of the property market works flawlessly.
An unexpected problem
After the sale, many face an existential crisis. Because the money from selling the flat turns out to be significantly more than expected. And a question arises:
— Do we really want to spend all of this on a house?
Someone who arrived in the Netherlands ten years ago with two suitcases and a job contract now finds themselves choosing between a house with a 200-square-metre garden and a house with a 220-square-metre garden. Life does have a way of surprising you.
What happens a year later
A year after the move, I usually ask my clients the same question:
— Do you miss Amsterdam?
The answer is almost always the same:
— We come back for a walk now and then.
For a walk. Precisely. Not to live. For a walk. To visit a museum. To sit on a terrace. To show the city to visiting relatives. And then to get in the car or on the train and go home. Home to a house with a garden. Parking. Quiet. And room to store all the things that somehow accumulate in a family over ten years in the Netherlands.
The final stage of integration
There’s a theory I’ve yet to disprove. An expat’s real integration in the Netherlands happens not when they get their passport. Nor when they start speaking fluent Dutch. It happens the moment they sell their flat in Amsterdam and voluntarily move to another town.
Because that’s when they start to look at the Netherlands not as a tourist, not as a temporary resident, and not as an expat — but as someone who has genuinely decided to live here. For good. And, ideally, with a garden of their own.