Buying a house in the Jordaan (Amsterdam): how to reach the owners

The Jordaan is a neighbourhood where little comes up for sale and much of it changes hands without ever reaching Funda. If you want to live here, a personal letter to the owners in a few chosen streets gives you a better chance than waiting for a listing.

In short

The Jordaan has 15,383 addresses in the BAG register.
An existing home in the municipality of Amsterdam sold in 2025 for €631,000 on average, +2.1% on 2024 (CBS StatLine).

Written by Jiri, estate agent in Maastricht and founder of DoorLetter.

Updated on 4 October 2026.

The Jordaan is the neighbourhood where I most often hear the sentence "if anything ever comes up, call me". That almost never works out, because the houses that come free here rarely stay on Funda for long, and many of them never get there at all. They go to the neighbour, the owner's niece, or someone who once put a note through the door.

What you need to know if you are looking here: most homes are flats in buildings from before 1900, often with an owners' association (VvE) of three or four members. Ground-floor flats with a small garden and upstairs flats with a roof terrace are the most sought after and change hands the least. Many residents have lived here for decades.

If I were looking here, I would pick two or three canals and side streets where I would really want to live, and write to the residents there. Not the whole neighbourhood. One good letter to twenty doors on the Bloemgracht says more than a hundred letters to the whole of 1015.

Jordaan in figures

Public figures about the neighbourhood, refreshed daily. They say something about who lives here and what it costs; whether anything will come up for sale, they do not say. That is what the letter is for.

Homes

Addresses: 15,383; BAG via PDOK

Value and prices

Average sale price, municipality of Amsterdam: €631,000+2.1% on 2024; CBS StatLine, existing homes 2025

Sources: the Dutch address and building register (BAG) via PDOK, CBS neighbourhood statistics (Wijken en Buurten), CBS StatLine (existing owner-occupied homes, average sale price per municipality). No source publishes overbidding figures per neighbourhood, so they are not here.

The average sale price in Amsterdam per year since 1995

Streets people ask about

These are the streets most often named by people searching in the Jordaan. Choose one or two where you would really want to live, not the whole list.

Bloemgracht · Egelantiersgracht · Lauriergracht · Westerstraat · Lindengracht · Palmgracht

Postcode area 1015 and 1016.

Other neighbourhoods in Amsterdam

This page in Dutch: Huis kopen in de Jordaan.

Frequently asked questions

How do I approach owners in the Jordaan?

Pick a few streets or canals, write one personal letter in which you say who you are, why the Jordaan and that you are not an investor, and send it to the doors where you would really want to live. Through DoorLetter the first letter is free, printed and delivered by PostNL; the owner can reply anonymously with the code in the letter.

Do many homes come up for sale in the Jordaan?

Few, certainly compared with the number of people who want to live there. Part of the sales also take place outside Funda, within the network of the owner or an estate agent. That is why writing to owners directly pays off more here than elsewhere.

Which streets are the most sought after?

The canals (Bloemgracht, Egelantiersgracht, Lauriergracht) and the quiet side streets. But "sought after" also means a lot of competition. A street that you find beautiful and that is not in every top ten often gives you a better chance.

Isn't a letter intrusive here?

Not if it is personal and asks for nothing except a conversation if it ever comes to that. Many Jordaan residents found their own house that way. A letter that says honestly who you are gets kept; a letter from a quick-buy company goes in the stove.

Write to the owners in the Jordaan.

Pick a street, write in your own words why you want to live in the Jordaan, and send your letter. The first letter is free, printed and delivered by PostNL; the owner can reply anonymously with the code in the letter.

Write your first letter