Buy-versus-rent gets argued constantly, usually with each side comparing different things: a monthly mortgage payment against a monthly rent, with the one-off costs, the maintenance and the length of stay left out entirely. Laying out the variables that actually move the comparison comes before any of the arithmetic.
There's no clean yes or no — it depends on your horizon and how you weigh predictability against flexibility. Owning gets you mortgage interest deduction (hypotheekrenteaftrek), which lowers the effective cost of borrowing, and it locks in your main housing cost while rents have been climbing faster than wages in much of the country. Against that: transfer tax, notary fees, and moving costs are sunk the moment you buy, so a short stay (under roughly 4–5 years) makes those upfront costs harder to recoup if prices are flat or fall. You're also on the hook for maintenance and VvE (owners' association) contributions that a landlord would otherwise absorb. Renting trades that for flexibility and no maintenance liability, but the private rental market here is expensive and thin outside the regulated segment. Which comes out ahead financially depends heavily on how long you stay, how the local market moves, and your own risk tolerance — genuinely worth running your own numbers, or having an independent adviser run them, rather than taking a blanket rule of thumb.