Invest now in the stable yet hottest Dutch market: Amsterdam!

[Samir C.]

Dear members, both Dutch and international,

If you are looking to invest in rental apartments or student housing, please consider Amsterdam. The market at the moment is very hot, yet in the future a steady growth is foreseen. Because of the international attraction, tourism and university city, Amsterdam stands far out in the whole country, especially when it comes to the housing market.

http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Netherla...

I may be of service. I offer full service investment and property management, whereby the investor (you) purchases and own and I do the rest, from selecting the right property en taking care of renting out and collecting rent to minor reparations and owners associations management. I also do flipping and complete make overs. Also, splitting larger properties in smaller apartments is very common in Amsterdam and a good way to add more value. I have the local knowledge of market, professionals and legislation. A good investment in Amsterdam starts at € 300k.

Looking forward to your replies and/or if anyone's interested, please contact me. 

[Jos Van der Sluijs]

Dear Samir,

I've contacted you trough pm (no need for it to be public). I don't think BP likes it to make it an promotion topic about one person/company. So let's get this topic more general about what to look out for in Amsterdam (and why you should partner whit someone local if you thinking about investing in Amsterdam from the US).

Let’s just state some downsides you need to know before investing in Amsterdam:

- Leasehold, in most of the Amsterdam region the ground is on leasehold from the Government;
- There is a point system which determines the max amount of rent you can get (to stay legal). If your get enough points it’s possible to ask whatever you want but if you’re not the maximum is around € 800,- or even as low as € 300,-
- Once you have rented an apartment out it’s almost impossible to get them out again as long as they are paying the rent. It’s also not always possible to increase the rent other than with an inflation correction (this year it was 0,7%).

The upsides are, apart from the fact that you know the downsides:

You can’t end the rent contract and there is a point system which determines the max amount of rent.

Yes I know I just stated the last two downsides again, why because it’s an upside as well. Because these two points made sure that a lot of people owning one or two buildings never got the maximum profit out of them. There are still some buildings with 4 apartments rented out for amounts around € 500,- each. If you can find those buy them and talk with the tenants to see if they would like to move out, maybe after you pay them some “goodbye fee” of let’s say € 10.000,- (I have seen up to € 50.000,- but it all depends on the profit there is to be made). Renovate the apartments once you get them all empty and rent them out again for let’s say € 1.750,- each or sell them as separate apartments for a good profit. I’ve clients who buy buildings like that for € 850.000,- payed 4 tenants off and renovated for around € 450.000,- added value by renovating and making the ‘attic’ into a fifth apartment and sell them separately for around € 2.200.000,- making a gross profit of around € 900.000,- or rent them out for around € 110.000,- a year (gross). If there was no point system or rents could be increased every x years this would not have been possible. For me this is the real power of investing in Amsterdam.

For an out of country investor it is vital to have a good person and or company to do this for you, it has to be as passive as possible.