Might be hard to qualify for a mortgage...

• A couple things to remember:
  
  1. If you are a recetn arrival and have a limited-term contract (ie not full-time) it may be difficult to find a (decent) mortgage in the Netherlands.
  
  2. Costs (taxes, fees, everything outside of the actual home price) is typically around 10 % of the purchase price. So if you want to buy a EUR200k house/flat you will need EUR220k to just get the house and that is not even including furnishings!
  
  So, if you buy the house and spend 220k and then in 2 years sell it for 210k (5 % increase of house value) you have lost 10k on top of all your mortgage interest payments! So, if you want to buy you better make sure you really want to stay for at least 4-5 years.
  
  Succes!

  Graham 24 Feb 2008, 12:46 - Report

buy or rent?