Netherlands 20,000 student rooms short of meeting demand

Since 2022, student accommodation providers have built nearly 5,000 new student homes per year, according to Kences, the knowledge centre for student accommodation, which is holding its annual conference in Utrecht tomorrow. Nevertheless, the housing shortage has barely eased.

Nationwide, there is a shortfall of 20,200 units, according to the National Student Accommodation Monitor, published Wednesday evening. The shortfall has fallen by just 1,300 since last year. But that is also good news: at least the student housing shortage has not worsened. 

Last year, Kences expected a significant increase in the shortfall, as many landlords started selling their properties after new tax rules made them less profitable.

Many landlords have indeed sold their properties: since 2024, 32,000 fewer students have rented from private landlords. However, this has not led to an explosive rise in the housing shortage for two reasons. First, fewer Dutch students are leaving their parents' homes. Secondly, fewer students from abroad are coming to the Netherlands. Over eight years, the proportion of students who have moved out of their parents' homes has fallen from 50 to 43 per cent.

Estimate
The shortage is an estimate: it refers to the number of students who want to rent a place but can't find anything. But how many students living with their parents would actually like to move out? That's not easy to determine.

“Supply also creates demand,” says Kences director Reijnder Jan Spits. “Thanks to new-build projects, students who had given up hope are actively looking for a place again.” 

Other factors can influence demand. Thanks to the basic grant (a government benefit for students that was scrapped in 2015 and reintroduced in 2023) and the expansion of the housing benefit for young people, students may have more money to spend, which could influence demand, according to Spits.

On the other hand, the cost of living is already high. Spits speculates that first-year students these days are more concerned about the binding study advice (the minimum number of credits a first-year student needs to score to be allowed to continue in the programme) and therefore wait a while before moving out of home.

Space

Spits believes it is important to continue building student accommodation anyway. Perhaps student accommodation providers could be given more opportunities to build on campus so they do not compete with other uses of the space, he suggests.

However, student accommodation providers would need sufficient financial resources to build new units. Kences therefore advocates abolishing the profit tax for these organisations. He estimates this could make a difference of around 15,000 to 20,000 homes.

However, if the business case for new-builds is sound, surely the organisations can find funding? According to Spits, it’s not that simple. "You can’t just borrow money", he says. “Regulators have something to say about that.”

Utrecht is one of the most challenging cities
The housing shortage is not equally severe everywhere, but in many cities the situation is challenging. Kences: “The pressure on the student housing market is highest in Amsterdam, Delft, Eindhoven, Leiden, Nijmegen, Rotterdam, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Utrecht and Zwolle.” The fewest problems are found in Tilburg, Wageningen, Arnhem, Leeuwarden and Ede.

Students are spending an increasingly long time looking for accommodation: on average, it takes them five months to find a place. This figure excludes students who never manage to find anything and therefore stay with their parents. In the 2017–2018 academic year, it took students 3.5 months to find a room.

Nevertheless, the lack of housing is the reason why 19 per cent of students still live with their parents. 44 per cent cite expensive rents as the main reason for still living at home, while 21 per cent simply have no desire to move out and 11 per cent say their parents live near where they study.

According to Kences, Students pay an average of 540 euros per month for a room with shared facilities, based on a survey completed by 42,000 students from 41 universities and universities of applied sciences. Multi-room apartments with a single tenant or a couple living together cost an average of 855 euros. On average, accommodation costs 590 euros per month, out of a student’s monthly budget of 1,340 euros.

More expensive
Some cities are more expensive than others, according to the same survey. In Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam, the price for a room with shared facilities is said to be around 650 euros per month. Multi-room properties cost around 950 euros on average.

Kamernet, the largest platform for private rooms, estimates the average room rent in Amsterdam to be 300 euros higher, but does not distinguish between a single room and a flat. Nationwide, the average rent is 691 euros, according to Kamernet.