Students in Breda and Zwolle now also pay 30 percent more for a room

It is even more difficult for students to find an affordable room this year than it was a year ago, not only in big cities like Amsterdam or Utrecht. Anyone who wants to stay in a room in Zwolle or Breda now has to pay almost 30 percent more than a year ago. In Breda a student room now costs an average of 670 euros per month and in Zwolle that is 578 euros.

Prices also rose significantly in Utrecht, one of the most popular student cities in the Netherlands. In Cathedral City you now pay 20 per cent more. After Amsterdam, as a student you will now spend the most there. This is evident from figures from Kamernet for the second quarter.

Kamernet only looked at student housing offered on its own platform; rooms offered through other means are not included in the calculation. On average, rooms on Kamernet became 5.4 percent more expensive.

“There are several reasons why a city like Breda is rising so fast. The price of a square meter has gone up. If rooms get bigger, you have to deal with a big increase in prices,” said Djordy Seelmann, Leader of Kamernet in the News NOS Radio 1. Another reason is the decrease in the number of available homes of 7.6 percent. This makes the shortage, which has been between 26,000 and 30,000 rooms for years, even greater.

According to Seelmann, this is partly due to the introduction of the Affordable Rental Act, which makes it more difficult for home sharers to rent homes. Because of that law, that one it came into effect in July, landlords are now allowed to charge students less rent than before. “Many smaller private tenants are leaving the market and selling their homes or renting their homes to couples instead of students,” said Seelmann.

Students who want to live in the capital still pay the most for a room, although the price has not increased much. On average, the landlord there asks for 961 euros per month.

Young people who move to nearby Haarlem because of these types of prices pay the most for their square meters. The price there is still 56 euros higher than in Amsterdam. Seelmann confirms that the shortage of rooms is increasingly spreading to surrounding cities. “That also makes it a regional problem,” he says.

Kamernet also analyzed the prices of studios and one-room apartments. The price rose the fastest in Enschede. With an average price of 743 euros for a studio, this is 18.5 percent higher than last year. Compared to room prices, studio prices in Amsterdam also rose significantly. In Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam, an average studio now costs more than a thousand euros per month.