By: Rachel Craill

The Netherlands has been an amazing place to live so far and is full of beautiful places to see. One recurring issue that a lot of students have spoken about however is accommodation, and more importantly the struggles of finding it. A lot of exchange students spoke about how hard it was for them to find accommodation, some not finding it until the last minute before they left. However, it’s not limited to just exchange students, a lot of locals also said they had similar issues and even when the semester started students were couch surfing with friends and trying to find a place to live.

While Erasmus does have some on site accommodation reserved for exchange students, similar to that of the Halls at Waikato, there are very limited spaces so the quicker you apply and register the more likely you are to get it. 

If, like me, you are unable to get a place on campus there are places that you can find rooms on, for example there is a facebook page for Rotterdam where people post renting opportunities regularly.

If you don’t want to use facebook, there are plenty of renting websites, I found my apartment through Housing Anywhere. I would recommend using this as it has a protection clause that holds the first month’s rent until you’ve moved in and if you get scammed they will help you find another place immediately. 

I got really lucky with both the location of my apartment, being only a short walk from campus and an amazing landlord.

One issue I ran into frequently when looking on Housing Anywhere was that I would find affordable places that I loved but when I looked deeper into them they had a required rental period between 6-12 months that you had to commit to. I am only here for a semester, so that ruled a lot of places out quite quickly. It took me a couple of months to find my apartment so the sooner you start looking the better.

I would also advise looking into the areas as some places had a lot of availability but when you looked at the towns reputation they weren’t the safest places to live. I am in Kraglien which is considered to be one of the safest towns, rent may be a bit more expensive but I believe it’s worth it. 

If you get an apartment or a room that is above the first floor, see if you can find someone willing to help you move in as Dutch stairs are very narrow, and you don’t want to be lugging heavy bags up by yourself. I was lucky that my neighbour was kind enough to help me take my luggage up.