The BIG News That We’ve Been Keeping A Secret!

So you thought the news that we sold our apartment couldn’t be topped?

Well, you’d be wrong! After months of behind the scenes chaos and trying to sort what feels like a million details we’re so excited to finally be able to share the biggest news ever!

We’re moving to Amsterdam!

I can’t even begin to tell you how excited we are about this new adventure.

After almost 5 years in Berlin, we’re craving a change and are planning on making the Netherlands our permanent home for the long-term foreseeable future.

We’re still in the process of house hunting which is definitely easier said than done given that we can’t travel at the moment. Ideally, we’d like to buy somewhere that’s in a condition that we can live in (what we class as livable other people would run away screaming from) but finding somewhere that’s right for us is not an easy task.

We have a very long list of requirements and, although we feel like we have a healthy budget, it’ll be a stretch to find anything we can afford. We’re searching in a VERY popular area and it seems that houses sell within minutes! Seriously, even getting on the waiting list to view a property is almost impossible!

So, what exactly is the plan?

We are, of course, looking for a renovation project. I’ve been looking at houses (over the internet) for well over a year and it’s been a struggle to find anything even remotely close to what we’re looking for so far (and that’s in our budget). 

There are a few non-negotiables like a garden (or at least some kind of outdoor space) and a minimum of about 110m² living area (although larger would be great, too) and it has to be a project that we can transform into a home we love.

Then there is an almost endless list of things we’d love our home to have, too. I love period features and as many of them as possible would be great, we’d like a fireplace (or at least the option of installing one), space for guests, off-road parking would be lovey and a good-sized room I can use as an office and/or workshop would definitely be a bonus, too. 

Having said all of that, I did come across an amazing 70s building that looked like something out of a movie set and had so much flair that was absolutely epic. We are definitely open for the right house, but we aren’t millionaires and, as much as it’s fun to look at your dream 2.5 Million Euro property (sponsors are welcome ;),. it’s not exactly something that’s realistic for us. 

We’d like to be close to town but not too close, oh and canal views would be amazing, too. Had I mentioned that we’re the goldilocks of house hunting?!

Oh, and did I mention that we’d like to be in our new home by the end of October? 

Eeek! We don’t ask much, do we?!

For very obvious reasons, it’s difficult to plan things at the moment. We’re far along in the planning process and have more or less sorted or at least researched all of the important fun things like jobs, taxes, health insurance, etc. but there’s still a lot more to do. 

Ideally, we’d like to buy somewhere that we can move straight into, but the reality is that we might have to rent a home first, which was the original plan! 

We wanted to sell our previous apartment, move to the Netherlands, live in a rented apartment and then house hunt from there. Given the pandemic, we were forced to rent for a while in Berlin, so if we can, we’d love to skip the rental step when we move to Holland. 

If this is all sounding a bit complicated to you, I’m sure you can imagine how complicated it is to us! The pandemic has thrown all of our plans up in the air and we really would have liked to already be living in Amsterdam! 

Where we go from here really depends on how quickly we can find somewhere to live.

We’re actually not planning on living in Amsterdam itself but are looking in Haarlem, a city just west of Amsterdam. If you have any recommendations, advice or really any kind of information you think we’d find helpful about moving to the Netherlands or on how to find somewhere to buy in Haarlem please send us an email ([email protected]) or comment on this post – we really need any help we can get!

Haarlem is an absolutely gorgeous city that’s super popular but sadly that means that finding somewhere to live there is really, really difficult! I’m sure it’ll be worthwhile when we finally get there but at the moment it just feels rather stressful! 

We’d love to hear what you think about our plans – did you see the move to Amsterdam coming? Do you find the idea of moving to a new country exciting or terrifying?