ABN Amro predicts small decrease in new home construction

The construction of new homes in the Netherlands will see a temporary decline this year, ABN Amro predicts based on the number of building permits issued last year. Between January and November 2016, the bank issued 45 thousand permits for the construction of new housing - a slight decrease from the 49 thousand permits issued in the same period in 2015, ANP reports.

The number of housing construction permits started increasing again in May last year. The bank therefore expects that the decline in the construction of new housing will be short lived and will pick up again in 2018.

Real estate agents organization NVM has been complaining for some time that not enough new homes are being built. That means that housing prices are skyrocketing and are therefore becoming less and less affordable, especially for first-time buyers. This is especially true in Amsterdam and the other large cities in the Netherlands - only in The Hague are house prices still below pre-crisis levels.