OK, I've been living in Katwijk for quite a number of years now. I still like it, but that doesn't mean I'm not looking around for another place. One for myself. In all honesty I think it'll be at least a year and a half before I have some financial reserves. Hopefully house prices will have dropped somewhat by then (not betting on it). So I stumbled upon a website talking about the starterloan and -grant. Some cities in NL will help a first-time buyer get his house by financing a part of the money with a loan that's free of payments AND intrest for at least 3 years. Trust me, that helps.
And today I found out that nearly every city has one specific condition. You must already be living in the city where you want to buy your house, only THEN can you apply for the starterloan. Great. I can get help buying a house in Katwijk. I don't WANT to keep living here in this sleepy religious fishing village. I much rather want to have a place of my own in a somewhat bigger town that actually has somewhat of a nightlife. Leiden, Alphen, Hilversum, Schiedam, that's the kind of town I'm looking for. Meh.
And today I found out that nearly every city has one specific condition. You must already be living in the city where you want to buy your house, only THEN can you apply for the starterloan. Great. I can get help buying a house in Katwijk. I don't WANT to keep living here in this sleepy religious fishing village. I much rather want to have a place of my own in a somewhat bigger town that actually has somewhat of a nightlife. Leiden, Alphen, Hilversum, Schiedam, that's the kind of town I'm looking for. Meh.
Comments
long term home?
If long term, are you really going to care about the night-life in 10-15
years or re-sale value?
Edited at 2008-04-17 05:08 pm (UTC)
There's also one room apartments, like the one I live in, but I think they'd be too small for you. Still, those cost about as much as a student's room in Leiden, that's why I ended up here.
It's a really nice apartment building, plenty of free parking spots, rather quiet neighbourhood, night bus stops nearby. I bitch and moan about the public transport sometimes but that's because I'm never satisfied, maybe I'm just like my mother (sorry, musical interlude).
And Rotterdam is closer to you-know-who ;)
(No, not me, thanks that you thought of me, I meant
Heh, I suppose the government isn't fooled by that... ;) Plus you would have to move twice in a short time.
Still, like Jones said, maybe it's not a bad idea to find another place to rent in the city you eventually want to buy a house in. Then you could apply for the starter mortgage after a while.
But I don't really know much about this sort of stuff :\
And I selfishly want to say, 'don't move further away from meeeeee', but yeah ;)
http://www.rotterdam.nl/smartsite2127094.dws?Menu=2102719&MainMenu=2102719
http://denhaag.nl/smartsite.html?id=58321
If you want to live somewhere that's nice but not too expensive, there's probably going to be work involved anyway. Ask Bander the story of when he was house-hunting (houses with the central heating not yet in place, houses with wood panels that would be a disaster if you took away the panels, and then his current house which seems nice enough, until you look at the way the toilet was installed, not to mention the ever-present cracks in the plaster of the ceiling of the living room. The poor bloke must have spent hours repairing... and I only know about what he did while I was around!)