Housing market madness boosting Dutch wealth

The wealth of the median Dutch household increased significantly in 2017, rising by 6 thousand euros to 28,300 euros. This is mainly due to substantial price increases on the housing market, Statistics Netherlands reports. If homeownership is taken out of account, the median wealth increased only slightly compared to 2016 to 14,100 euros. 

Statistics Netherlands looked at all the assets and debts of Dutch households. Savings and investment mortgages are not included in these figures as the stats office was not given access to that data. Pensions are also not included.

Around 30 percent of Dutch households have negative wealth or no wealth. The 10 percent of households with the lowest wealth are mostly homeowners with higher mortgage debt than their homes are worth, according to the stats office. All these households together have a mortgage debt of 146 billion euros, and a house value of 106 billion euros.

The wealthiest 10 percent of households have a total of 951 billion euros in assets. For a third this wealth consists of own homes, for a fifth it consists of large interests in companies, and 15 percent is bank and savings balances.

The wealthiest households largely consist of older people over the age of 65. They often have their own home with a mortgage that has been fully or largely repaid. In 2017 the average capital of households in this age group was 113 thousand euros. Only 4 percent of this group has more debts than assets. The opposite is true for younger households. Over 40 percent of households with a main breadwinner aged 25 years or younger, have more debts than  assets.