Remote workers and people still on a foreign payroll when they arrive run into screening processes built entirely around Dutch salary slips. Whether an overseas contract counts at all, and what has to sit alongside it to make the file credible, decides how wide a search can realistically be.
Yes, plenty of landlords accept it, though private owners tend to be more flexible than agencies, who often want income that's easy to verify and chase if something goes wrong. Have the contract translated if it's not in English or Dutch, and pair it with recent payslips and bank statements showing the salary actually lands. It helps if your employer's country has a tax treaty with the Netherlands, since that makes your income easier for a landlord (or their screening service) to sanity-check. If you're working remotely for a foreign employer while living here, expect extra questions about your residence status and how long the arrangement is expected to last. A Netherlands-based guarantor still smooths things considerably if the file looks thin otherwise — it's the single biggest lever you have when your income history doesn't look "local."