Student rooms are cheaper and cosier, according to outgoing housing minister Hugo de Jonge. But studios are more profitable. That is why student rooms are being converted into studios, he warns.
Landlords can charge more money for a studio because the students have their own kitchen, shower and toilet in one. The government compensates part of that higher rent with the rent allowance. Investors therefore prefer to build new studios rather than student rooms.
Cosier
This trend is undesirable, and the minster is considering measures to take, as he wrote in response to parliamentary questions. After all, student rooms are much cosier. De Jonge cites several studies showing that students living in rooms are happier than students living at home or independently.
The government has partly encouraged the rise of studios since the rent allowance applies only to studios, not to rooms. Can’t you rectify that, D66 asked the minister.
De Jonge is now thinking of options, but any measure will require a lot of work. A reliable register of student rooms would have to be set up, and a lot of money found. The outgoing minister calculates that if students living in rooms would also receive a rent allowance, the government would lose between €600 and 840 million each year in extra rent allowance.
HOP, Olmo Linthorst
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