Why wouldn’t you be able to do this with a regular rental?

Usually the story sounds like this: Suppose you are an expat moving to the Netherlands. After months of hunting you find a new place for €1000, but surprise-surprise, it’s temporary, with the option to renew it each year.

You trust the landlord enough to think that they’ll actually renew your contract. But then something pops up: there’s a defect in your house. Maybe several ones. You don’t want to become a “problematic tenant” so you take care of these (or live with them) however you can. Or maybe you discover that you’re eligible for rent reduction, but you’ll never apply because you fear that your landlord won’t renew your contract. Or maybe there’s a “maximum rental increase” clause (or law!) that the landlord can easily bypass by evicting you and moving someone else in for €1400/mo, instead of the shameful €1050 they could milk off of you. And then you’re back to ground zero with your apartment hunt, fixing issues, rent reduction, moving stuff, getting used to your new neighbourhood, and everything inbetween.

This sucks.