Huge leap in new home sales

The Netherlands Association of Realtors (NVM) says that every quarter is better than the last in the housing market. RTL Nieuws reports that the crisis in The Netherlands seems to have been surpassed, as June this year shows a doubling in the number of new homes bought compared to June last year. In the first seven months of 2014, more than 12,000 newly built homes have been sold. This is 52 percent more than last year. According to the NVB association for developers and contractors, the housing market recovery is moving onwards. At the end of the year, it is expected that a total of 22,000 newly built homes will have been sold. "The good news is that each quarter is better than the last", says Nico Rietdijk of the NVM. In the years before the crisis, 40,000 new homes would be sold every year, showing that the recovery still has some way to go. "We are happy that sales are improving, but it only partly makes up for the extreme drop of the last years", says the NVB. Most regions are profiting from the recovery. Most of the recovery is happening in the West, and in bigger cities. In the North, where the crisis hit the hardest, such as Groningen and Drenthe, sales have doubled and tripled respectively since 2013. The NVB tells RTL Nieuws that the recovery is mainly down to the low mortgage rate, and the trust that is returning amongst buyers. People have been postponing moving house, and buying. Now that consumer trust is on its way back, new homes are being bought.