I’ve lived in San Diego and thought finding housing there was hard but it’s a cakewalk compared to the hell that is finding an apartment in Amsterdam. I’ve considered leaving the city at times because finding somewhere decent here that’s also affordable seems close to impossible.
Worst is amsterdam as a native. Easiest was Antwerpen.
As a Belgian I very much agree. Antwerp was so easy. Amsterdam/The Hague nearly impossible.
Also lived in Cardiff for a bit that was very do-able too 👌
Haha when I moved to Antwerpen, I kind of went about my apartmenthunt as I would Amsterdam. Meaning that I send like a 100 of messages to rental advertisments in a day.
In Amsterdam I would get 2-3 replies and from Antwerpen I had too many answers and calls back to reply too!
Milan is the absolute worst, even for people who can speak Italian.
I second it!
Milan is bad but try Bologna where rental prices are now at Milan levels but which has more students, less housing and a recent tourism (AirBnB) surge. I got lucky, but I have student friends who were sleeping in tents in the forest for a while.
Compared to what?
Amsterdam was tough back in 2017. Imagine it’s worse now. Market is tight on supply, high price, and moves incredibly fast.
Pay a maakelar to help you search. They cost about one months rent of where you get plus VAT but will help make things happen. I can refer the one we used, but either way we all searched together and she helped do the paperwork, set us up with utilities and rental insurance. For us, having kids and trying to search was almost impossible.
Would love the referral - pm me
Sure no problem. Funny thing is we moved from San Diego (oceanside ) to essentially Haarlem so similar paths.
Best: Porto, Portugal. Sure houses aren’t that luxurious but most are solid. I had two great apartments and two less good places but in general, finding a place was relatively easy (through friends) and the places were affordable. Of course Porto has become more expensive the last few years.
Manchester, UK. Because in another country I had spent 3 weeks in a hotel while looking for a place, I looked for a place online with an agent. The room seemed ok (mind you, in the UK housing is so expensive that you are almost forced to share a house). I arrived late at night, totally rained out so I signed the paperwork and went to my room. The day after, I started to really see the state of the house: my window was not attached to the walls, it was held up by a lot of foam. And it was broken so the room was cold. Bathroom was full of dirt and the ventilation was full of mould. Kitchen was the same and the living room dusty. I got into an argument with the landlord and after two months I managed to leave. While the housing market in other countries is bad, the UK one is explicitly one of exploiting renters.
A small town (or range of towns in about an hour radius) in Upstate NY was the hardest. AirBnB and wealthy tech gentrification hit hard, so rent jumped 40% in one year and caused a lot of scarcity.
Even the places that were way above budget had waitlists of 100+ people. They picked people who could prepay, had super high credit (like 770+), and had steady high paying jobs—even for dingy apartments. We were never able to find a place to live.
Sydney is a complete disaster; expensive, competitive and stressful with desperate people throwing money they don’t have at places that are tiny, mouldy, falling apart with zero security. There’s no cap on rent increases and you could find yourself moving out after six months as there’s no long term options for tenants. Best would be Malaysia, an absolute dream. Beautiful plentiful apartments with great facilities at competitive prices.
Antwerp, Belgium - rents are really reasonable for the 2nd largest city in Belgium. As a renter you have lots of rights and its kind of impossible to turf out tenents.
Rents are increased yearly on an index. My current apartment started at €950 in 2020 and in 2023 we now pay €1025. So, an indexation of €25 per year. This is city center too with a parking space and garden included.
Renting is really straightforward. Im not sure on the actual market because we’re not looking.
Second this. I think we have it mostly OK here in Antwerp (or Belgium in general) as renters compared to the rest of Western Europe, nothing like the horror stories from other cities. And the rents not absurdly expensive, low-quality or scarce, there are options. I’m really glad that there’s such a strong framework for renting with standard contracts, indexation and renter protections.
Helsinki+other places in Finland… Found a place fast and the landlords were decent people not douchebags.
Worst: Wellington, New Zealand
Best: Lausanne, Switzerland
Malta - in general it’s very easy to find a place, but it takes some work to avoid scammy landlord, even high end places are often badly maintained and in poor condition, and it’s quite expensive for what you get (this is obviously in general - I’m sure someone has found an amazing bargain of the best quality place somewhere).
Best cities for rentals are what you can afford for place you want , ability to offer more And do not be fussy
As others have said , shortage of housing in every livable city in EuropeVienna was pretty good despite some typical restrictive Austrian rules and practices.
The standard of housing in Scotland is horrendous.
France is pretty sure m shit, you need a special work contract to be able to have an apartment and they barely have those work contracts out
Yup, moved to france a month ago, my boyfriend is French and yet we have not found a single place (we have called probably around 60 different places by now) and not a single private renter or agency will rent to us. We aren’t even in a big city, we are in a small city in the north and we were looking for a studio or one bedroom (400 or less) we can afford more but the agencies tell us we don’t have enough money even with a French guarantor. We are currently staying at an air bnb that is 700/a month and it’s a studio loft. It would be like 350/month if we were renting regularly.
I mean CDIs are not that uncommon, but if you don’t have this permanent contract it’s such a struggle, even as a French person.
Yeah, I have never come close to getting a CDI. I honestly don’t understand how the French even do it.
Milan, Italy. Some things just don’t make sense.