It likely goes without saying, but having somewhere to live is extremely handy for student life and life in general. Four walls and a roof are a necessary ingredient to any persons development and without this it would be very difficult to grow and enjoy yourself as a student. Ane de Miguel Moline, a Tourism Management student from Spain, shares with us how she found her spot in a student house.
Hi Ane, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Hey, my name is Ane and I come from the north of Spain. I have lived in Madrid for 10 years. At the moment, I am studying Tourism Management in Saxion Deventer. I am 29 years old and I like pancakes and travelling!
Great! And could you describe your current housing situation for us?
Sure, right now I am sharing a house in Deventer. I have a room for myself and we are four housemates in total. We live about 10 minutes biking to Saxion, which is nice and close! I searched a lot of sources when looking and found this house on Kamernet. I paid €15 for the Kamernet subscription to speak to the landlord, and they seemed to like me as well which was nice.
Which other resources did you find yourself using when you searched for a house?
Facebook was another source I used. Saxion also has a housing option which I looked into as well. On top of this, on the Saxion webpage you can find an accommodation page with some useful pointers on either arranging housing through Saxion or arranging it yourself. Websites like Kamernet include; -Pararius, Roomspot (for Enschede), and Room (for Deventer).
When did you being your search for a house?
I began in mid-May, I needed to find something for September but just out of caution I started looking around this time to be safe. It was in plenty of time looking back now and I ended up booking my room for July and therefore adding July and August to my rent costs before I really needed them, otherwise I would have lost the room! The process took between 3-4 weeks in all, it definitely was not easy with constant searching over this time period. Also, the subscription on Kamernet is inconvenient as it puts an extra costs for us as students which can add up. On Facebook, I also found that everyone was searching and no one was providing, which added to the struggle. In addition, there is also the risk of getting scammed so you might be careful and double check any housing offers via social media platforms.
Have you got any recommendations for potential students searching for a house?
For me, I would say to start early. Starting early and not waiting until say the end of June will put you in a much better position for finding an accommodation. This was the only real problem I could have ran into in my experience. Also its worth mentioning to make sure the Facebooks ads and so are real and not scammers trying to take advantage of you as a student in a new place.
