I created this blog to write about my sustainability journey. However, it is also my personal blog. And so, sometimes, I write about what’s happening in my personal life too. When big things happen, life updates. Today is such a day, because something big in my life has happened and I want to share more about it with you. There’s been a big life update: I moved to Utrecht! And honestly, most of my life update articles have been about me moving. But I sincerely think (and hope) that this will be the last life update on that front in the coming years. Let me tell you why I moved to Utrecht.
The last life update
I’m going to freshen up your memory a bit and tell you about my last life update. In the last life update, I shared with you that I was leaving Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I lived in a student flat and I had to move out because I was no longer a student and had to make room for someone new. I struggled with that, because I loved living in Amsterdam with other students/housemates. When I left Amsterdam, I moved to my in-laws. That’s because my partner and I wanted to move to Utrecht, but we were not able to find a house at that time. Consequently, we were both basically homeless and my in-laws took us into their house in February 2024. At that time, I thought we would live there for a few months until we moved to Utrecht.
Why Utrecht
The plan was to go to Utrecht because it’s a nice meet in the middle. My partner used to live in Groningen and did not want to move all the way to Amsterdam and I used to live in Amsterdam and did not want to move all the way to Groningen. Utrecht was a nice city we both liked. It’s in the center of The Netherlands and so we thought we couldn’t really go wrong there. It’s closer to both our families than Groningen and Amsterdam and it’s also closer to my job (where I started in April 2024).
The house search: a rental
What makes Utrecht so attractive to us, are also the things that make the city extremely popular among other people. Utrecht is in the top 10 of most popular places to live in The Netherlands. And we started noticing that when we started our house search in February of 2024. My partner just came back from traveling when I moved to my in-laws. And it turned out that my income alone was not enough to find a place to live in Utrecht. So first we had to wait a few months until my partner found a job.
Then, when he found a job, we found out that it is nearly impossible to find a rental in Utrecht with two incomes as well. The housing crisis in The Netherlands is dramatic and there were simply no rentals below 2.000 euros a month available. Even while we hired a realtor specialized in rentals in Utrecht. Via our own network we eventually found a rental in Amsterdam (which would be a good in between option), but that rental was cancelled in October 2024, a week before we were supposed to move to this new rental.
The house search: a mortgage
After we had been looking for a rental for 9 months, we decided to try something else since nothing was working. We went to see a  mortgage advisor to see if we could buy a house. And the good news was: it looked like we could buy something in Utrecht. With our income and a lot of savings we could make it work. We hired another realtor specialized in buying a house. We then found out that there were waaaaay more houses for sale than there are for rent. Every day, we saw reasonable options. In total we visited about 8 houses and we did a bidding on 3 of them. The third time it was a deal. We bought a house!!
The apartment
In December 2024 we bought the apartment and in Februari 2025 we moved. And from that point on we finally could focus on moving on with our lives again. Because honestly, I sometimes gave up that we would find anything at all. Eventually, we bought an apartment with 60 m2 of living space and 6 m2 of storage unit. I am so happy with the size of the house! It’s the smallest we can have, without compromising on things. We have two bedrooms, an open kitchen, a balcony on the south-side, a storage unit and live about 5 minutes away from the city center.
And the smaller the house, the more sustainable. In both building materials on the long term, but also in behavior (less space to heat, less space to buy stuff for). I honestly don’t ever want to move to a house bigger than this one. I don’t want to put myself in bigger dept than is absolutely necessary (a mortgage is a debt, you know).
The apartment has energy label B. That’s reasonable for now. There’s room for improvement, but we can only make adjustments together with all other apartment owners because the complex has an homeowners association and we all own the building together.
Privilege
My partner and I lived with my in-laws for a little longer than a year. That alone is a privilege, because not everybody has this fall-back option. But the fact that we’ve also bought a house in one of the most popular cities in The Netherlands is an even bigger privilege. I feel sorry for the people who can’t buy, but rely on rentals. Rentals are simply impossible to find. And usually, the rent is higher than a mortgage would be. I think this is unfair and that housing can never be something others can profit from (but more about that another time…).
A new chapter</h2>
I am so excited for this new chapter in my life! I have a lot more free time because I don’t have to travel so far to work anymore (2,5 hours a day instead of 5). Time for new hobbies! I have already started playing handball again and am planning on doing so much more. Baking bread and not worrying to mess up the kitchen for example. Experimenting with more vegan recipes. Seeing my friends more. But besides this new free time I have also gained a lot of freedom. Even though my in-laws are really cool and relaxed people, we were in the end living in their house. From now on, it’s my own house. I can paint the walls as I like, eat pizza for dinner every day if I want to and bother no-one if I decide to have friends over for a late night. The ide
a of that freedom alone is exciting.
Living an eco-positive lifestyle will also be easier in Utrecht. Traveling by public transportation is always my biggest impact in a year. The past couple of years that has been the case because I had a long-distance relationship or I traveled very far to my work. With this move things have changed, work is only 38 minutes by train away. My friends and family are closer too.
I can’t describe how happy I am to have started this new chapter in my life!
Yours sincerely,
Romee
Go for it 🙂 enjoy your freedom