3 ms·

Amsterdam is specially bad right now as well. Same problem, salaries are around 55-70k for a decent engineer and rent is at least 1.5k month for a tiny place.

Amsterdam is specially bad right now as well. Same problem, salaries are around 55-70k for a decent engineer and rent is at least 1.5k month for a tiny place. To me it's close to insane.

khhh35575544 8y ago
Thing is though you can easily live in the Hague or somewhere closer and commute as transport is good. No one is forcing anyone to live in Amsterdam, right? I believe from personal experience that for plenty of London dwellers it's not the commute that puts them off moving out of London rather snobbery about alternatives. What amazes me is how far people are willing to stretch themselves financially due to snobbery. For me personally it's not worth the gamble.
IkmoIkmo 8y ago
It's important to note Dutch taxes, too. 55k puts you at 4.5k a month gross, but 3k a month net. That's a 36k net salary of which 18k a year goes to rent (50%). And that's for a talented engineer. I know plenty of engineers with salaries around 40k, and the median salary is around 35k for all industries. On the other hand, 1.5k a month can get you a 2 bedroom 10 minutes from the heart of the city. I'm not sure what you're used to but it isn't that tiny for Dutch standards. Certainly plenty for a single person who can get a single bedroom in a decent location around 1100, too. And if you've got a partner or roommate, it's pretty trivial to pay less than 800 per person. Further, it's pretty easy to pay much, much less and still have a short commute to work. Again, it's not ideal but it's different from some US situations where you need to live 2 hours outside the city you work in, to afford the rent with the money that job earns you. In Haarlem, Utrecht, Hilversum are all 15-20 minutes away by car or public transport. But it seems to be getting worse quick, particularly for those who don't have a well-paying job and a family it's a shitty deal, you're essentially forced out of the city because social housing waiting lists are 15 years.
- collyw 8y ago
  That sounds kind of similar ratios to Barcelona. Do you think its related to them being tourist cities pushing up proeperty prices. (On a side not Barcelona is pretty strict on AirBnB. Still screw AirBnB, there is no need for residential accommodation to be used as hotels when rents are getting ridiculous like this).
  - IkmoIkmo 8y ago
    Pff, I'd like to say yes from the narrative and feelings people have in the city, but I haven't seen an empirical study. Amsterdam is quite strict about airbnb too, entire apartments can only be rented out 30 days a year, but it's hard to regulate. Basically, you can get 150 a night, i.e. 4500 a month for apartments that normally rent for 1500. So there's quite an incentive to break the rules. Basically, if you have one 1500 home, you pay 18k a year, rent it out for three times that (54k), and basically live on a median salary at the cost of managing a single rental. It's pretty crazy. I'm quite okay with tourists, but I think they should put a big fat tax on them. The notion that there's 7 billion people who may find your city of 1 million people an interesting place to visit, puts the locals at a gigantic demand-disadvantage. It's virtually impossible to compete on free market economics. But if tourists are still paying 150 a night, but landlords are only getting 75 a night after-tax, then locals who can 'only' pay 50 a night can compete for space, you can keep tourist flows in check but keep it open to tourists too, keep your city open, let tourism sustain the local economy etc. That having been said, Amsterdam has a few unique problems. For one, it's got an old city centre, the image of which is part of its protected heritage. That's why it's general policy not to build high-up, which means you're limited in your population density and get very expensive housing. In general building upwards is also tricky because it's a city built on swampland. Secondly, the crisis hit pretty hard here and construction halted for a long time and is only now picking up, but with a lot less (labor) capacity than before the crisis which had to be shed off to survive. Then there's the fact there just isn't a lot of space left to build, the Netherlands doesn't really commit to urban sprawl which is great, but also limits the radius of the city. And if you can't go further and you can't build upwards, plus you're not building as fast as you should after a crisis, you've got some big issues.
spdionis 8y ago
On the other hand a friend of mine bought a nice apartment (70 sqm +) with basically no mortgage and very low interest and was paying less than 1k including utilities. It probably depends a lot on the city area. It's true that this apartment was not really in the best neighbourhood, but the metro was close and the apartment was awesome.

Amsterdam is specially bad right now as well. Same problem, salaries are around 55-70k for a decent engineer and rent is at least 1.5k month for a tiny place. To me it's close to insane.

khhh35575544 8y ago

Thing is though you can easily live in the Hague or somewhere closer and commute as transport is good. No one is forcing anyone to live in Amsterdam, right? I believe from personal experience that for plenty of London dwellers it's not the commute that puts them off moving out of London rather snobbery about alternatives. What amazes me is how far people are willing to stretch themselves financially due to snobbery. For me personally it's not worth the gamble.

IkmoIkmo 8y ago

It's important to note Dutch taxes, too. 55k puts you at 4.5k a month gross, but 3k a month net. That's a 36k net salary of which 18k a year goes to rent (50%). And that's for a talented engineer. I know plenty of engineers with salaries around 40k, and the median salary is around 35k for all industries. On the other hand, 1.5k a month can get you a 2 bedroom 10 minutes from the heart of the city. I'm not sure what you're used to but it isn't that tiny for Dutch standards. Certainly plenty for a single person who can get a single bedroom in a decent location around 1100, too. And if you've got a partner or roommate, it's pretty trivial to pay less than 800 per person. Further, it's pretty easy to pay much, much less and still have a short commute to work. Again, it's not ideal but it's different from some US situations where you need to live 2 hours outside the city you work in, to afford the rent with the money that job earns you. In Haarlem, Utrecht, Hilversum are all 15-20 minutes away by car or public transport. But it seems to be getting worse quick, particularly for those who don't have a well-paying job and a family it's a shitty deal, you're essentially forced out of the city because social housing waiting lists are 15 years.

collyw 8y ago
That sounds kind of similar ratios to Barcelona. Do you think its related to them being tourist cities pushing up proeperty prices. (On a side not Barcelona is pretty strict on AirBnB. Still screw AirBnB, there is no need for residential accommodation to be used as hotels when rents are getting ridiculous like this).
- IkmoIkmo 8y ago
  Pff, I'd like to say yes from the narrative and feelings people have in the city, but I haven't seen an empirical study. Amsterdam is quite strict about airbnb too, entire apartments can only be rented out 30 days a year, but it's hard to regulate. Basically, you can get 150 a night, i.e. 4500 a month for apartments that normally rent for 1500. So there's quite an incentive to break the rules. Basically, if you have one 1500 home, you pay 18k a year, rent it out for three times that (54k), and basically live on a median salary at the cost of managing a single rental. It's pretty crazy. I'm quite okay with tourists, but I think they should put a big fat tax on them. The notion that there's 7 billion people who may find your city of 1 million people an interesting place to visit, puts the locals at a gigantic demand-disadvantage. It's virtually impossible to compete on free market economics. But if tourists are still paying 150 a night, but landlords are only getting 75 a night after-tax, then locals who can 'only' pay 50 a night can compete for space, you can keep tourist flows in check but keep it open to tourists too, keep your city open, let tourism sustain the local economy etc. That having been said, Amsterdam has a few unique problems. For one, it's got an old city centre, the image of which is part of its protected heritage. That's why it's general policy not to build high-up, which means you're limited in your population density and get very expensive housing. In general building upwards is also tricky because it's a city built on swampland. Secondly, the crisis hit pretty hard here and construction halted for a long time and is only now picking up, but with a lot less (labor) capacity than before the crisis which had to be shed off to survive. Then there's the fact there just isn't a lot of space left to build, the Netherlands doesn't really commit to urban sprawl which is great, but also limits the radius of the city. And if you can't go further and you can't build upwards, plus you're not building as fast as you should after a crisis, you've got some big issues.

spdionis 8y ago

On the other hand a friend of mine bought a nice apartment (70 sqm +) with basically no mortgage and very low interest and was paying less than 1k including utilities. It probably depends a lot on the city area. It's true that this apartment was not really in the best neighbourhood, but the metro was close and the apartment was awesome.