The new academic year has begun, but for Marlou Lankhaar it looks different than for most students. She travels four hours a day, because she cannot find a student room in Eindhoven. “I’ve been looking since January, but there is little supply and the rooms that become available are mega duration.”
Last week Marlou started her study of real estate at Fontys Hogeschool, in Eindhoven. She still lives with her parents in Waddinxveen, but would like to live in the same city as her fellow students.
Via various Facebook groups, Instagram channels and housing associations, she has been trying to get a room since the beginning of this year. Unfortunately without success. “They also know that I am still looking at my student association,” she says. Her budget is 500 euros for a room and she does not have many requirements: “Just finding a room within my budget is the most important thing.”
In practice, that proves to be very difficult. “Most of the rooms that I see are much more expensive, but I can’t afford that. I also have to be able to do some shopping,” Marlou explains. At housing associations where the rooms are a lot more affordable, it is on the waiting list. “But there you get a room based on your registration time and then I am number four hundred of the approximately five hundred interested parties.”
Marlou is not the only student who can’t find a room. The total shortage of student housing in the nineteen largest student cities according to the National Monitor for Student Housing (LMS) estimated at 21,500 homes.
“My roommate pays 100 euros more for a room that is just as big.”
For Marlou there is nothing else to do but keep searching and reacting again and again. But even if you have been able to find something, it is not always ideal. Amber* pays 530 euros for a student room of fifteen square meters in Tilburg. “That price is very high for Tilburg, but I couldn’t find anything else,” she explains. She had only just pulled into the room when the room was released next to her. “For that room my roommate lost 630 euros a month, while our rooms are just as large.”
The prices of student rooms in Tilburg rose by 23 percent in the past year, according to figures from Kamernet. The city knew, apart from Nijmegen, the largest rise in the Netherlands. The roommates of Amber who have been living there for about five years have sprung that dance. “They pay less than 400 euros,” she knows.
“I am not surprised if the rooms of 400 euros will soon cost 650 euros.”
It is that Amber is having a good time in the student house, otherwise she would have already started looking for something else. Now she occasionally looks at the offer. “If something happens that I could live with a girlfriend, I think I will respond.” For fear that it will work against her, she does not dare to knock on the landlord or manager with questions about the rent. “But I would not be surprised if the rooms in our house of 400 euros will soon cost 650 euros if a new tenant comes in.”
*The real name of Amber is known at Omroep Brabant. For privacy reasons she tells her story under this name.
Almost 18,000 student residences less
New figures from the National Monitor Student Housing (LMS) show that in 2024 almost 18,000 student residences have disappeared. This means that despite the delivery of new living spaces, the total number of rooms is falling, while demand is increasing.
According to the National Student Trade Union (LSVB), this is partly because student houses are being sold en masse. “If it is not possible to earn to students or when their tenancy position improves, the buildings are immediately sold and the students will be on the street,” says Maaike Krom, chairman of the trade union. “This makes it increasingly difficult for students to find a room.”
The trade union believes that politics is to intervene. “It is time for them to actually show ambition for a solution.” Reducing temporary lease contracts, as the cabinet suggested earlier, is not a good idea according to the union. “With this kind of sham solutions, students are again the victims of moderate government intervention.”