All Forum Posts by: Ivor Grisel

Yes, I have a property which is used on a per room basis. I don't need a license yet (under the norm in Arnhem of more than 4 you need a license - but that will change). You never know if they are going revoke the licenses, but I don't think they will anytime soon. If they would, they would need a very good reason. And doing that, they would remove a big chunk of living for students.

But if you are in doubt, what are your other possibilities? Can you rehab it into appartments or studios? Or maybe revert it back to one house and sell it that way? 

So what we're doing is paying off the mortgage, so our loan to value becomes less. In the case we are forced to sell, we have less to lose. We might even get out on top by rehabbing it and either renting it out as a regular appartment or sell it at that point. 

I'm not sure how Middelburg is like, but having a property with a student housing license on it can be quite valuable if the municipality is not handing them out anymore (or it is harder to do it). 

If you keep it yourself, Box 1 won't be a problem, you can keep it in Box 3.

Also, you can always see if you can sell it and what people are willing to pay. If it doesn't pan out the way you want, keep it yourself. 

But 850k isn't a small deal. How did you find it?

Hey Tamar,

Wholesaling is legal, but most people don't like it because it gets used by criminals to launder money. So in Dutch, it is known as a ABC deal. A sells to B and B sells to C. 

If you do this, be sure to get a notary which is familiar with these kind of deals as most of them are not that keen on doing them (they don't want to help criminals obviously). 

Also be aware that some buyers won't like this (again, criminals...). So be aware that that might happen. It might also be that the government might be coming knocking on your door, as they might be curious to see where the increase in property value came from. 

Also be aware that you have to have a fallback plan. If you get the property under contract and the buyer backs out, you will have to purchase it or forfeit the koopakte, which will result in quite a hefty fine (because of the 14 students). 

Also curious about the deal (as I might wanna do these deals in the future). If it is a student house with 14 students and good cashflow, the owner is probably an investor right? So why would he give you a deal which can make you enough money to consider this? And do you have a network to sell it to? Have you compared other investment properties out there? Are you also taking into account taxes, as these kind of deals might fall in Box 1, which results in you having to pay quite the amount to the government? And I don't want to burn the deal, just being the devil's advocate here to make sure you covered your bases.

Hope it works out!

@Michael Ben-Yosseph

Hey Michael! Welcome in the forums!

There are some possibilities for networking on- and offline. Check the Meetup site and search for the Netherlands. There are two meetups here. In November, there is also a Mastermind. Search for that too on Google. That one is paid though.

There is also a WhatsApp group and a Telegram group. If you want, I can add you in the first one.

Hope it helps! And can you tell us a bit more? Any rentals yet? Looking for something specific?

Again, nice to meet you!

@Lois Ding

There is a "Netherlands" topic, but that mostly is a post of people mentioning they want to be in the WhatsApp group (which in turn isn't that active...). So no real thread. I would advise you to set up keyword alerts for your city and the Netherlands in general.

There are a few meetups, but there hasn't been any recent activity there. Mostly due to covid I think.

In regards to your question about advice for a newbie: what would you like to know? Because there is so much info. Specific questions help :)

Welkom Lois!

There are some Dutch investors here, although like Jeff mentioned, the focus is on US. But there are some Dutch topics. And I try to welcome all the Dutch members, to help them get around. 

Be sure to search for keyword Netherlands to find some of the posts.

@Stef Schuil @Wouter Krusemann love the idea! It has been too long since the last meetup. I'm located in Nijmegen, so that would be awesome! But I'm quite flexible. But I think the best locations would be Den Bosch/Utrecht as they are quite central.

Let me know what works for you! Worst case I can host a Teams meeting from work.

Ivor

Thanks for this nice summary Dennis! That's good to know. I'm still planning blogpost to handle these kind of discrepancies between the US and the Netherlands, so that Dutch BP readers can catch up more quickly on what parts of BP work in the Netherlands and which don't.

Be aware that Woonfonds is just an indication. I don't believe that they will ever let the value in rented state be higher than the property is actually worth. You should find a mortgage professional that works with investors in your local area and talk with them.

In regards to the multifamily, check BP in one of the posts that I replied to. We already shortly discussed it there. I have yet to find any. But the thing is, most properties are sold separately here. Maybe that is due to the small nature of our population? Or because of the limited available real estate. When you have four houses next to each other, bigger parties like retirement firms will most likely buy those, or the bigger investment firms. Because here it goes from appartment > complete building, or house > complete row (rijtjeshuizen). So there a limited options in-between. 

@Tom Gimer

Quick side note: Hague is derived from The Hague, a larger city in The Netherlands. It is our political capital and home of the International Court of Justice. So it would be a bit weird that we would set up the convention and not being part of it (although technically possible of course 😊).

Nice. That's already 17k profit 😁 I hope they will reconsider all of this due to covid. We don't need people saving money, we need people to spend it. Taxing investors and not taxing savers isn't going to help the economy much...