I have been in the Netherlands for one year and still looking for a suitable apartment for my family of 3 in Zwolle. We have registered with both public and private housing agents. While the public ones...keep stringing us along for months ..the private collect fees but deliver nothing. ...It is also surprising to see that classification of housing in the Netherland is on another strange and unique level! A three room house simply means, a living room, one bedroom and a lounge room...and of course one toilet!
so now we are applying for 5 rooms...hoping that it will have two bedrooms that can at least contain a standard two person bed! The rooms we have seen so far are "te klein". (Too small). Wat moeten we doen? Wheew! When we are called to view an apartment. ...once in a long while....we go there hopeful and come back downcast. My 16year old son has been sleeping on the couch for 1 whole year!!
jeez... I don't know what to do! Who can help us please!?
HOUSING? OH MY!!
Hi,
This is hard indeed. 
I can tell you one thing for sure—you do not qualify for Public housing or Social Wonning. You have to have lived in your Gemeente for X years (the number of years is based on your city's backlog). This means your local taxes have paid into the system first.
Maybe things have changed since I moved here 24 years ago? 
But housing is seriously tough in the Netherlands. I do not know how you managed to get on that list, but maybe you meant something else. If you are on the list somewhere - last I heard, there was an 8-year waiting list for a place in Amsterdam. 
I am talking about this link -
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpe … huurwoning
Second, I don't understand why you are paying fees to anyone while you are looking for housing .... with anyone.
When I first moved here, I just looked online at (now named) www.funda.nl. I hope your laptop converts everything to English, but the Dutch word for rental is Huur. Anyway, I found something I liked and met the rental agent etc. There were no fees collected in advance for anything.
Another thing - they DO ask for your monthly income to be like 5 times the rent or something like that. You would end up living in a small place because you couldn't afford anything much at all.
I got around this because I offered to pay a year's rent in advance, and the lease contract was for a year, so they agreed. After that year, I purchased a house, so I got out of the rental market, which was tough even back then.
Lastly, yes, when they say three rooms, that means everything but the kitchen, bathroom, or sunroom. So a three-room house might have a living room, dining room, and one bedroom. And, of course, the bedrooms are small—mostly.
The only way around this is to purchase a house—which tend to be more generous. I mean I just would not buy anything unless I had a big bedroom. When I say purchase a house, it is mainly going to be an apartment as we do live in a small, crowded country, although they do have some standalone properties and a lot of what we Americans call Townhouses.
But buying an apartment is quite the norm in terms of purchasing property.
If you have any questions - feel free to ask me.
Becky
@titienvogue
Contact me if you want one apartment in amsterdam.
@Becka A....oh thanks for your response...very helpful.
I've only been in the NL for a few years now and can echo most of what Becka said. When I first got here I had a private housing search company working with me but they also said that I need to do a lot of active searching myself and they would help with setting up the appointments. You have to be very much active in the process and just use the agencies as the interface with the real estate agents, helping you get utilities set up, etc, depending on the services they provide.
In addition to funda.nl I recommend pararius.nl as well. In my experience funda was more catered to units for sale, or to units for rent that were completely unfurnished (no flooring and in many cases no kitchen either).
I can't really speak to the market in Zwolle - I think the whole of the Netherlands is in a housing crisis but some places are worse than others. Depending on your ability to travel you might want to look at outlying areas as well -- 'suburbs' tend to have bigger places, too.
As Becka said, buying a place is also an option depending on your situation. This can bring the price down a bit (plus you would probably be building equity), and if you are here on a permanent contract it's relatively easy to get a mortgage.
Good luck with your search!
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