Budget day leak: €1 billion extra for quicker home construction

The cabinet is once again pushing 1 billion euros extra into accelerating the construction of affordable homes, various sources told broadcaster NOS. This extra investment will be announced on Budget Day next week Tuesday.

In 2019, the cabinet also put 1 billion euros in a Housing Construction Incentive fund, to help municipalities realize affordable housing that is not actually financially profitable. The money was intended to help municipalities, for example, remediate dirty soil, make a neighborhood more accessible, or design public space. The fund was popular, with dozens of municipalities drawing from it in recent years.

The Housing Construction Incentive fund is now empty and will be replenished with this new investment, though with maybe some other conditions. The amount may also be spread over a number of years. Details are not yet known.

While the cabinet is pushing extra money into housing construction, no other far-reaching measures will be implemented to tackle the housing shortage in the Netherlands, according to the broadcaster's sources. Scrapping the landlord levy and reducing mortgage interest deduction are both considered politically sensitive topics. And as the Rutte III cabinet is ruling in a caretaker capacity, it can not make decisions on politically sensitive topics.

The Netherlands is facing a shortage of about 331 thousand homes. Home prices and rents continue to rise, and owning a home is becoming more and more difficult for the average Netherlands resident. On Sunday, thousands of people gathered in Amsterdam to protest for something to be done about the housing shortage.