Seven in the morning, and you're standing on your own private deck with a mug of coffee, watching a heron pick its way along the far edge of the pond. The only sounds are birdsong, the occasional soft ripple of water, and somewhere behind you in the kitchen, the gas stove clicking to life. This is not a holiday you rented. This is yours.
Boshoeve 319 sits on a 491-square-metre plot within Landgoed Het Grote Zand, a well-established recreational estate in Hooghalen, in the heart of the Dutch province of Drenthe. The bungalow was built in 2005 and has been kept in genuinely good condition — not "good condition" as a vague reassurance, but the kind of good where you walk in, put your bags down, and don't have a list of things to fix. It's offered fully furnished, which matters more than it sounds when you're buying from abroad and don't want to spend your first summer hauling flat-pack furniture across a car park.
The layout across 95 square metres is smarter than you'd expect. Downstairs, a ground-floor bedroom with two box spring beds and its own en-suite shower room makes life easy for guests who'd rather not tackle stairs, or for owners who simply want everything on one level when they arrive on a Friday evening. The living room opens directly through double French doors onto the covered terrace — that transition between inside and outside is the soul of this property. In July, with the terrace doors folded back and a breeze coming off the water, the room feels twice its size. The kitchen is fully fitted: fridge-freezer, dishwasher, combination microwave, gas hob, extractor. There's also a utility room with its own garden door, which is the kind of detail you appreciate once you've come back from a long bike ride through the heathland and need somewhere to stow wet gear.
Upstairs, two more bedrooms — each with box spring beds, wardrobes, nightstands — and a second bathroom with shower, washbasin, and toilet. Six people sleep here comfortably. Families with teenagers, two couples travelling together, grandparents and grandchildren — the configuration works for all of it.
Drenthe doesn't get the tourist crowds that descend on Amsterdam or the Wadden Islands, and that's precisely the point. This province moves at its own pace. The forests around Hooghalen connect directly into the Drents-Friese Wold National Park, one of the largest continuous woodland and heathland areas in the Netherlands. Come late August, the heather blooms purple across Hijkerveld — it's about a fifteen-minute cycle from the estate gates. Fochteloërveen, a raised bog reserve just to the northwest, is where you go to see white-tailed eagles if you're patient and quiet. The cycling routes out here are flat, well-marked, and genuinely beautiful: long straight paths through pine forest interrupted by open heath and the occasional roe deer bolting across the track.
The estate itself functions as its own small community. There's a restaurant and traditional Dutch café in the central building — think stamppot in winter, a cold Hertog Jan on the terrace in summer. An indoor swimming pool and sauna mean rainy October weekends are still very much worth the trip. Kids have dedicated play areas. There's a park shop for basics, so you're not driving into town every time you run out of milk.
Speaking of town: Assen is ten minutes by car, a proper Dutch city with a good Saturday market on the Brink square, decent supermarkets, and the Drents Museum — one of the best regional museums in the country, home to the remarkable Tollund Man-era bog bodies and a substantial art collection. Beilen is similarly close and handy for everyday errands. Hooghalen village itself is reachable by bicycle for a coffee or a quick grocery run.
For international buyers, the practical picture is straightforward. Permanent residency is not permitted — this is a recreational property by designation — but you can combine personal use with rental income. The property is currently tenanted and generating income, so there's an existing framework to build on rather than starting from zero. The Netherlands has a well-structured system for recreational property ownership, and the transfer terms are negotiable, giving new owners flexibility on timing. EU buyers will find the legal process relatively uncomplicated; non-EU buyers should budget for standard Dutch legal and notarial fees, which are predictable and transparent.
As a second home in Europe, this ticks boxes that are genuinely hard to find in combination: water frontage, forest surroundings, a managed estate with amenities, solid construction, and a province that remains genuinely off the radar for international buyers — which means prices haven't been inflated by speculative demand. At €229,500 fully furnished with an existing rental income stream, the numbers make sense whether you're buying primarily for personal use or thinking about yield.
Key features at a glance:
3 bedrooms sleeping up to 6, across two floors
2 bathrooms plus 2 separate toilets
95 sq m of living space on a 491 sq m private plot
Private waterside deck directly over the pond
Covered terrace off the living room via double French doors
Fully furnished and move-in ready
Ground-floor bedroom with dedicated en-suite
Fully fitted kitchen with dishwasher, gas hob, and fridge-freezer
Utility room with garden access
Private driveway with ample parking
Estate facilities: restaurant, café, indoor pool, sauna, play areas, park shop
Direct access to Drents-Friese Wold trails and Hijkerveld heathland
10 minutes by car to Assen and Beilen
Currently generating rental income with flexible transfer terms
Recreational designation — no permanent residency permitted
What makes this property worth a serious look isn't any single feature — it's the combination. The water view from the deck at sunrise. The cycling distance to ancient heathland. The fact that you can arrive on a Friday, drop your bags, and be sitting outside with a glass of wine by four o'clock without having done anything more strenuous than unlock the front door. Drenthe rewards the people who find it, and this particular corner of it rewards them especially well.
To arrange a viewing or request the full documentation pack through Homestra, get in touch today. Properties in this position on Landgoed Het Grote Zand — water-fronting, three bedrooms, this condition — do not sit on the market long. See it in person and the pond will do the rest of the convincing.
