When did you come? The city has cleaned up considerably in the last 5 years. It is very easy to get lost in the centre if you are not familiar with it, the islands and canals all end up looking the same! I'm talking about being outside of the centre specifically, but even that is relatively safe when compared, for example with New York or London.
The most expensive canal ring is Herengracht (pronounced Heragrach, if my dutch serves me). I linked a fun study earlier in the thread about the prices on there. If you want a look, check out www.funda.nl- it has an english option and see prices for yourself. You can find studios on the outer canal rings for as little as 120k eur- granted they will be rabbit hutches, but probably not a bad long term investment. I recently saw a 135k 20m square studio on the canal ring after Herengracht- extremely nice finish (wasn't even freehold, was on a municipal lease), went in less than a week. I actually live in a canal house (again I consider myself extremely lucky), it's pretty cool! Apart from the general noise at night it's a beautiful view when it's not raining- actually sometimes even when it is too
But yeah 2 million euros isn't even the lowest end of what large apartments in the more beautiful parts of the centre can cost. There are some truly incredible properties available. Another anecdote- a corner house on Herengracht facing the Amstel river was renovated, and all of the flats went in less than a week. Some property developers are making out like bandits right now.
The most expensive canal ring is Herengracht (pronounced Heragrach, if my dutch serves me). I linked a fun study earlier in the thread about the prices on there. If you want a look, check out www.funda.nl- it has an english option and see prices for yourself. You can find studios on the outer canal rings for as little as 120k eur- granted they will be rabbit hutches, but probably not a bad long term investment. I recently saw a 135k 20m square studio on the canal ring after Herengracht- extremely nice finish (wasn't even freehold, was on a municipal lease), went in less than a week. I actually live in a canal house (again I consider myself extremely lucky), it's pretty cool! Apart from the general noise at night it's a beautiful view when it's not raining- actually sometimes even when it is too
But yeah 2 million euros isn't even the lowest end of what large apartments in the more beautiful parts of the centre can cost. There are some truly incredible properties available. Another anecdote- a corner house on Herengracht facing the Amstel river was renovated, and all of the flats went in less than a week. Some property developers are making out like bandits right now.
I was there in the spring of 2011, after visiting France, Spain and Portugal. We stayed very close to Prinsengracht...spelling might be wrong, but you'll probably know what I'm talking about. Yeah when I first got there, it was already dark and you're right in that many of the street corners looked very similar. It was a very mind opening trip...and I look forward to another Eurotrip including Amsterdam again.
Thanks for the link...I checked out a few properties but will need to spend some more time on the site to see what is available at different price ranges, but the properties that I saw look nice for the price.