Mass exodus of student houses from the housing market

Landlords are increasingly selling off their student houses, particularly in large cities. Around 10,000 student rooms have disappeared, according to knowledge centre Kences. “The shortage has never been this acute.”

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

Those numbers have now been fleshed out using land registry data: from the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, around 10,000 student rooms were sold. That amounts to some 5,430 properties, meaning an average of nearly two student rooms per property.

Another 7,000-plus rooms have been taken off the market. These are no longer being rented out, as the homes are likely to be put up for sale soon, says Jolan de Bie, director of Kences.

According to Kences, the land registry figures show that a particularly large number of rooms have disappeared from the market in the major cities. Amsterdam tops the list with 2,080 rooms, but Rotterdam (1,025), Utrecht (810), The Hague (790) and Groningen (695) have also seen significant losses. Utrecht is currently the city under the greatest pressure in the student housing market, says Kences.

Shortage worsening

The sell-off follows new tax rules for people with a second home. Additional regulations have also made it less attractive for homeowners to rent out to students.

There is currently a shortfall of over 20,000 rooms, but the wave of sales is far from over. At the current pace, a total of 45,000 rooms could disappear from the market over the next few years. That amounts to 9 percent of the total supply, Kences writes. “The shortage of student housing has never been this severe. But this year, it is set to grow significantly”, the knowledge centre warns.

Delft

This weekend, the newspaper NRC also published an article on student rooms in the private housing market. The paper looked at adverts for homes under 25 square metres and, like Kences, saw a sharp drop within a year.

The decline was especially steep in Delft, the newspaper reported. The supply of student housing there has fallen by 44 percent. At the start of the academic year, there were 305 private rooms available on the market in Delft last year, compared to just 172 this year. In the bigger cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, the drop was around 30 percent, according to NRC.

200.000 for a room

The increasing pressure on the student housing market in Utrecht is also evident from a new trend: student rooms are now being ‘sold’ to students’ parents, at around 100,000 to 200,000 euros per room. Technically, a non-self-contained room cannot be bought, so no mortgage is available. Parents are only paying for the ‘right of use’ of the room.

Housing minister Mona Keijzer warned parents in response to parliamentary questions last Thursday to be cautious about what they’re buying. There is a risk that the ‘right of use’ could become void. If the entire property is sold, a new owner is not obliged to honour the existing room usage rights.

The municipality of Utrecht is critical of this development. It plans to investigate whether houses have been illegally subdivided, RTV Utrecht previously reported.