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

The Watergraafsmeer 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 Watergraafsmeer has 10,089 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 6 October 2026.

For many Amsterdammers the Watergraafsmeer is the step after a flat in Oost or De Pijp: more space and a garden, with the city still within cycling distance. Once people live here, they do not move in a hurry. The very homes that matter, a ground-floor flat with a garden or a spacious upstairs flat on an avenue, therefore come onto the market little. If one comes free, it has often already gone round the street, and it goes to a neighbour who wants to move up or to someone who once sent the owner a letter.

It is a polder, drained in 1629, and until 1921 it was a municipality of its own. Of the country estates that lay here, only Frankendael on the Middenweg remains. The oldest part of Middenmeer lies in the north, against the Ringvaart, and that is where, in the Linnaeusparkbuurt, people search most. Betondorp was built between 1923 and 1925 as an experiment with concrete houses and has been a municipally protected townscape since 2022. South of the Kruislaan lies the spaciously laid-out garden suburb from the 1950s, and Park de Meer stands on the site of the old Ajax stadium. A ground-floor flat with its own garden in the northern part is the rarest.

If I were searching here, I would choose the Linnaeusparkweg or a stretch of the Hogeweg and write to the residents of the houses that suit me. Short and honest: who I am, why the Watergraafsmeer, and that I am going to live there myself and am not writing on behalf of an investor. Neighbours know each other here, and a good letter reaches whoever is thinking about moving.

Watergraafsmeer 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: 10,089; 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 Watergraafsmeer. Choose one or two where you would really want to live, not the whole list.

Middenweg · Kruislaan · Linnaeusparkweg · Hogeweg · Christiaan Huygensplein · Copernicusstraat

Postcode area 1097 and 1098.

Other neighbourhoods in Amsterdam

This page in Dutch: Huis kopen in de Watergraafsmeer.

Frequently asked questions

How do I approach owners in the Watergraafsmeer?

Do not write to the whole polder, but send one personal letter to the residents of the houses where you would really want to live. Say who you are, why the Watergraafsmeer, and that you are going to live there yourself. Through DoorLetter the first letter is free, printed and delivered by PostNL; the owner can reply anonymously with the code in the letter.

Does much come up for sale in the Watergraafsmeer?

Something comes up for sale regularly, but the homes in greatest demand, a ground-floor flat with a garden or a spacious flat in the northern part, are rarely among them. Those often go through the neighbours or through an agent who already had a buyer. For that kind of home a letter takes you straight to the owner.

Which streets are the most sought after?

The avenues of the Linnaeusparkbuurt in the north, such as the Linnaeusparkweg and the Hogeweg. That is also where most searchers write. A quiet street further on that you find beautiful has less competition and gives your letter more room.

What belongs to the Watergraafsmeer?

For most Amsterdammers the whole polder within the Ringvaart: Middenmeer with the Linnaeusparkbuurt, Frankendael, Betondorp and Park de Meer. The CBS does not know the Watergraafsmeer as one area but as a few districts, each with their own neighbourhoods; the figures on this page add up the residential neighbourhoods among them. Betondorp is a neighbourhood apart, with small family houses in a protected townscape.

Write to the owners in the Watergraafsmeer.

Pick a street, write in your own words why you want to live in the Watergraafsmeer, 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