Dutch home prices up 16 percent; Biggest increase in 21 years

In July, existing owner-occupied homes in the Netherlands were 16.3 percent more expensive than the same month last year - the largest price increase since October 2000 when home prices also jumped 16.3 percent, Statistics Netherlands said on Monday.

Since the post-credit crisis low point on the Dutch housing market in June 2013, home prices increased steadily to their highest point ever last month. Compared to June 2013, homes in the Netherlands were 74 percent more expensive in July 2021.

The Land Registry recorded 19,043 home sales in July, almost 16 percent less than a year earlier. In the first seven months of 2021, a total of 138,457 homes changed hands, 7 percent more than in the same period of 2020.

Home prices in the Netherlands are driven by a housing shortage and low interest rates. And as a result, buying a home in the Netherlands is becoming increasingly unaffordable. Last week De Hypotheker reported that single-income homes with an average income can only afford 3 percent of homes on the Dutch housing market. In Amsterdam, a total of five homes fell within that price range, all of them relatively small apartments.