The largest and capital city of the Netherlands, Amsterdam has a population of around 850,000 within the official city limits. This figure rises to over 2 million people when you take into account the whole metropolitan area.
The inner part of the city is comprised of concentric canals which date back to the seventeenth century, the ‘Golden Age’ of Holland when Amsterdam was one of the most important cities in the world. Many of these canal side properties are now monuments as the whole area of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Several of the world’s top 500 companies have their base here and the city is also the cultural capital of the Netherlands.
The kinds of properties you can find here are distinctive to their own part of the city. Properties below a certain size and level of modernization are not (legally) available for rent to expats; for these ‘social sector’ apartments you have to have a dutch nationality and also usually wait on a list for a few years. Nevertheless there are jewels both hidden and otherwise to be found in every neighborhood if you know where to find them.
Unless you are very lucky indeed most expats have to consider there requirements and then decide on where they are prepared to compromise. It is useful to bear this in mind when starting your search, for instance if you are looking for a large apartment in the Jordaan, or an apartment with a roof terrace as well as an elevator in the Old South. It can also be quite difficult to arrange parking in the center of the city on the canals unless you find an apartment with a garage attached or an owner willing to share his parking permit. The waiting list for a permit can be several years and for many the prices of around €400 euros per month for parking in a Q-Park are not realistic.
Prices in general in the city of Amsterdam it has to be said are very high, as they are in many capital cities of the world. You could compare them for instance with London or Tokyo.
The good news is that Amsterdam by international standards is quite a small city, and public transport here is excellent. Use the route planning functionality here on our website or alternatively of course google maps, or the godfather of public transport websites 9292ov.nl.
