Maia Kenney was living in Utrecht, the centrally located city in the Netherlands, while she built a career in the art world. At first, she was sharing an apartment with her partner. But last spring they broke up, and Ms. Kenney needed to move — fast.
An American and Polish citizen, Ms. Kenney, 34, grew up in Boulder, Colo., but also lived on and off in Poland, where her mother is from. She wound up in the Netherlands after her father suggested a program at University College Utrecht, and returned to Utrecht a few years after graduation to get her master’s degree in art history.
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Putting her Polish passport to use, she was able to stay in Europe and spent the next six years developing a career as a curator, while also teaching at a design school.
After the breakup, Ms. Kenney weighed her options. She didn’t want to move back to the States, and Utrecht was expensive. Amsterdam, about 30 miles north, was also expensive, but she had a lot of friends in the Dutch capital. “I’d always actually wanted to live here,” she said. “It’s just a very energetic city.”
Many people her age, especially in the cultural sector, had roommates. That wasn’t going to work with her dog, Pepper, so she decided to try to buy something small on her own. “This is my chance,” she thought.
She had about 300,000 euros ($350,000) to spend, cobbled together from her savings and some help from family — “an act of love, because I was not in a good situation before,” she said. She was able to secure a small mortgage after paying off student loans. To save on costs, she decided to forgo a broker and trawl listings online.
The market was tight and appealing options were limited. Maurits van Leeuwen, a broker in Amsterdam, said most listings in Amsterdam sell for 10 percent over the asking price, and quickly. This was especially true at Ms. Kenney’s price range, in a city without many studio apartments.
“A lot of people can pay it, so the sellers have a lot of choice in who is buying,” Mr. Van Leeuwen said.
Ms. Kenney looked for a studio with a balcony so Pepper could have outdoor space. Good connections to Amsterdam’s main train station were important, since she often commutes to other parts of the country. But she was primarily focused on neighborhoods, because she knew that with her budget she wouldn’t be getting a ton of space.
“The city has to be my living room,” Ms. Kenney said.
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