Sharing an apartment should be possible in Amsterdam

The only fact is, in Amsterdam it is illegal. The municipality of Amsterdam acknowledges a strict definition of a ‘household’. According to current regulation, a household consists of a maximum of two people, with or without kids. Solely residents that meet these specific conditions can form a ‘household’ and are officially allowed to share an apartment.

Amsterdam is very popular. The city gained 50,000 inhabitants over the past five years. Therefore, the pressure on the housing market is enormous.

If one does not want to buy a house, there are two rental markets: public housing (what we call ‘sociale huurwoningen’) and the private sector (what we call ‘vrije sector’). Public housing is meant for people with lower incomes. Most expats are dependent on the private sector.

The private sector rental market consists of just 8.5% of the total Amsterdam market. Over 61% are public houses and approximately 30% are owner-occupied houses.

It is evident that the rents of those private sector apartments are sky high, especially in popular neighbourhoods. Therefore, sharing a private sector apartment with friends or colleagues is for a lot of expats the only possibility to live in the city.

On the 29th. of May I will present a proposal in the Amsterdam city council to legalize the sharing of apartments. The word we use in Dutch for this phenomenon is ‘woningdelen’. If the majority of the City Council will agree with my proposal, it will become easier to attract talent, students, young professionals and expats to Amsterdam, which will be a great benefit to the city.

You can read my proposal on my website (in Dutch): http://vvdamsterdam.nl/danielvanderree/article/3872/

Short bio

Daniel van der Ree (1972) is a member of the city council of Amsterdam for the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), a right wing liberal and free market party. He is spokesperson with regard to spatial planning, housing and land development.