Looking for housing in Maastricht

Let’s be honest—finding housing in Maastricht can be a tough journey. But in my experience, almost everyone manages to find something eventually, whether it’s in the city itself or in the suburbs. The current housing situation in Maastricht is actually looking pretty good since there has been a lot of work done to provide more houses to the students here. There is currently less pressure on the housing market, so hopefully this will also take the pressure off of the search process a bit. In this blog, I’m gonna tell you all about how I found my place, and hopefully you find some tips that help to make your housing search smoother.

My journey

I started looking for a place three years ago, before my Bachelor’s course began. I eventually found a student house in Maastricht that I now share with two other girls. We each have our own rooms, and the kitchen and bathroom are shared. I found it through Facebook, which is still one of the most popular platforms to find housing in Maastricht.

How I found my place was through joining certain Facebook groups like Housing in Maastricht and Rooms in Maastricht and checking them daily for new postings. Whenever I saw something interesting, I would message the poster immediately. To save time, I had a short introduction about myself ready to copy and paste. I definitely recommend doing this—people often choose roommates based on these short bios, so try to make yours as friendly and honest as possible. However, I would make sure to always include a little bit about the specific room in your message. This shows the person on the receiving end that you have actually read the description and can explain why it would suit you to live there. 

After sending what felt like hundreds of messages to random people on Facebook, I finally started getting some replies and was invited to a few viewings. Since I was still in Italy at the time, I had to do all of my viewings online. It all worked out in the end, but I’d really recommend visiting a place in person if you can. Online calls can be helpful, but they only show you what the current tenant or landlord wants you to see.

Uni View

If you’re unable to visit a potential accommodation in person, check out a service called Uni View. It lets you hire a student in Maastricht to visit the property for you, record a video tour, and ask questions on your behalf. This didn’t exist when I was in my searching era, but it would’ve saved me a lot of stress—not to mention also helping me to avoid scams.

Scams

Speaking of scams: be very careful. I was nearly scammed by someone on Facebook who asked for my documents and a deposit without even offering a viewing. She said she was “out of the country,” which is a common red flag. If something feels off, it probably is—don’t send money or personal information before confirming that everything is legit. A way to make sure your contract is legit is by either checking out our page: Housing scams and red flags. If you have the time you can also get a rental check by the rental law agency Huurteam Zuid-Limburg.

One last tip: be prepared to pay rent for June or July, even if you’re only moving in late in August. It’s frustrating, but sometimes it’s better to do this to secure a place early than risk not finding anything closer to the start of the semester.

If you want more advice, we recently interviewed some university students about their housing experiences—check out the video on our page!