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.
Victoria BC has some brutal limited availability. But I guess the whole west coast is fucked now. I really liked Vancouver but the market is super expensive. Currently north of Tokyo, Japans housing situation is so insane compared to Vancouver.
People are literally giving away free houses in Japan, where in Vancouver 10-20 people are trying to pay for a bedroom. In and around Tokyo the options are endless. In Vancouver it’s like An Airbnb market
Living in a smaller town in NL and may have to move there soon and I’m honestly not looking forward to it
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!
Is it seemingly because you’re not Dutch? Or?
There’s just no houses here :( Not even only Amsterdam, all most all other ‘bigger’ cities here are the same.
Adelaide, South Australia. National vacancy rate is only 1.1% and Adelaide is well below that at 0.5%. I hate it here.
Any French city. 🙀 If you do manage to find an apartment, 50% chances it’s shit.
80% you mean
You’re actually right 🤣
Why don’t they ever renovate apartments in these old EU cities ?
Because they are heritage listed buildings and need to be repaired to look exactly the way it was before. This means you need specialists to come in and figure out how to do it. You receive some assistance as far as I know but it’s still a nightmare to organise.
Berlin is very difficult. Hundreds of people are trying for the same apartment. It’s worse than job hunting.
Sydney sucks. Expensive, short supply of properties that are either new but shitty quality or old but outdated and with completely inadequate insulation. Very hard to get a place if you have pets. Can get evicted for no reason and rent increases are at the discretion of the landlord.
Best: Dubai hands down.
The Bond is kept by the government and if the tenants objects it is cheap and easy to stop the landlord taking it. Truth is, many tenants leave places filthy and broken. You absolutely cannot be evicted for no reason, 60 days notice required to be given by landlord for no reason eviction. The vast majority of landlords only own 1 investment property. This is the best system of any country I have lived in.
It’s true that rent increases have gone crazy, but all the costs have gone up, mortgage, from 2% to 6% in a year, insurance due to fires and floods, and council rates, water has doubled in price. So the cost of the property has gone up even if you own it outright.
Gentrification has a lot to do with it, lodging/boarding houses are being chased out of existance by snobby new neighbours, student accommodations have become 1 family homes and AirBnB has distorted the market completely. I would love to see what would happen if AirBnB was banned.
Amsterdam was tough back in 2017. Imagine it’s worse now. Market is tight on supply, high price, and moves incredibly fast.
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.
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.
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.
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).