Buying a house in Benoordenhout (The Hague): how to reach the owners

Benoordenhout 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

Benoordenhout has 9,585 addresses in the BAG register.

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

Updated on 4 October 2026.

Benoordenhout is a neighbourhood where people buy a house to grow old in. The families who come here stay once the children have left. That is why so little comes up for sale, and why the houses that do come free go without Funda remarkably often: to an acquaintance, through an estate agent who has kept a list for years, or to someone who once wrote.

The neighbourhood was largely built between 1910 and 1940: villas and town houses in the Nassaubuurt around the Van Hoytemastraat, spacious walk-up flats along the Van Alkemadelaan and wider family houses towards Waalsdorp. A whole house with a garden within walking distance of the Haagse Bos is what is asked for most and comes free the least. Flats come up more often, usually when an older resident leaves.

If I were looking here, I would pick two or three streets, for instance the Breitnerlaan or a stretch of the Weissenbruchstraat, and write the residents a short letter. Not with an offer, but with the request to think of me if they ever start thinking about it. In Benoordenhout that sometimes takes years. The letter that is still in the drawer by then is the letter that works.

Benoordenhout 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: 9,585; BAG via PDOK

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 Den Haag per year since 1995

Streets people ask about

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

Van Hoytemastraat · Breitnerlaan · Weissenbruchstraat · Wassenaarseweg · Ruychrocklaan · Neuhuyskade

Postcode area 2596 and 2597.

Other neighbourhoods in The Hague

This page in Dutch: Huis kopen in Benoordenhout.

Frequently asked questions

How do I approach owners in Benoordenhout?

With a short, personal letter to the residents of the houses where you would really want to live: who you are, why Benoordenhout, and that you are going to live there yourself. Through DoorLetter the first letter is free, printed and delivered by PostNL, and the owner can reply anonymously, even months or years later.

Does much come up for sale in Benoordenhout?

No. People live here a long time and most family houses only change hands when a life changes. Part of those sales take place outside Funda. Flats come up somewhat more often, whole houses with a garden rarely.

Which streets are the most sought after?

The avenues in the Nassaubuurt around the Van Hoytemastraat and the quiet streets towards the Haagse Bos and Clingendael. But above all pick the street that suits your family; a street that not everyone names often gives you a better chance than the best-known avenue.

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 residents of Benoordenhout found their house through an acquaintance themselves and know this way of doing things. A letter that says honestly who you are gets kept; a letter from a quick-buy company goes out with the waste paper.

Write to the owners in Benoordenhout.

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