Homestudy

In 2025, rental houses in the Netherlands received an average of 57 replies from potential tenants, compared to 22 replies in 2021. In social housing, one individual house can get up to 1000 replies in cities like The Hague.

At the time of writing this, temporary contracts were made illegal just over two years ago, which has not led to renter security but to the mass selling of property by landlords. My last landlord ended up selling his property too, ending my two-year lease.

At the time, I should have felt lucky. Lucky, because they offered me to buy it, for a tenant-special price which is higher than what my childhood four-bedroom family home sold for 10 years ago.

Homestudy is a series in progress on thinking about finding and making a place to call home as I move between temporary places and sublets.