More and more students are giving up their search for a room and continue living at home, Kences reported in September. The knowledge center for student housing found that in 2024, over 17,000 fewer students were renting from private landlords.

Based on land registry data, those numbers have now been specified: from the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, roughly ten thousand student rooms were sold. That corresponds to about 5,430 houses, averaging nearly two student rooms per property. In Eindhoven, this involves 235 student units.

Another seven thousand rooms have not yet been sold but have already been withdrawn from the market. They are no longer being rented out because the properties are likely to be put up for sale soon, explains Kences director Jolan de Bie.

Amsterdam and Utrecht

According to Kences, land registry data show that many rooms have disappeared from the market mainly in the larger cities. Amsterdam tops the list with 2,080 rooms, followed by Rotterdam (1,025), Utrecht (810), The Hague (790), and Groningen (695). Utrecht has now become the city with the highest pressure on its student housing market, says Kences.

This wave of sales follows new tax regulations for people who own a second home. In addition, new rules have made it less attractive for homeowners to rent to students.

There is currently a shortage of over 20,000 rooms, but the selling trend is far from over. At the current pace, a total of 45,000 rooms could disappear from the market in the next few years. That would amount to nine percent of the total supply, Kences writes. “The student housing shortage has never been this severe, but it’s set to increase significantly this year,” the knowledge center warns.

Delft

Newspaper NRC also published an article this weekend about student rooms on the private housing market. The paper analyzed listings for rooms smaller than 25 square meters and, like Kences, found a sharp decline over the past year.

The situation deteriorated particularly in Delft, the newspaper reported. There, the supply of rooms in student houses dropped by 43.6 percent. Around the start of the previous academic year, there were 305 privately rented rooms available, compared to only 172 this year. In the larger cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht, NRC found that the decline was around thirty percent.

Two hundred thousand euros for a room

The growing pressure on Utrecht’s student housing market has also led to a new phenomenon: student rooms are now being “sold” to parents for about one to two hundred thousand euros each. Officially, a non-self-contained room cannot be purchased, meaning buyers cannot take out a mortgage for it. Parents are simply paying for the “right to use” the room.

Outgoing Minister of Housing Mona Keijzer warned parents on Thursday, in response to questions from MPs, to be cautious about what they are buying. The right of use may become invalid: if the entire property is sold, the new owner is not obliged to honor that right.

The municipality of Utrecht is critical of this development and plans to check whether houses have been illegally subdivided, local broadcaster RTV Utrecht reported earlier.

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.