One in 40 Netherlands homes standing empty

In the Netherlands, more houses are empty than there are houses in the entire municipality of Utrecht. At the start of this year, 2.4 percent of all homes were uninhabited, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS). Most haven't been vacant for more than a year. They include, for example, recently completed newly-built homes.

A total of 187,000 homes are vacant. A third of these have not been used for more than a year. Relatively speaking, Laren and Loppersum have the most empty houses, while Duiven and Westervoort have the fewest. Vacancy is relatively common in densely built areas.

It happens much more often that offices and shops are not used, about 10 and 9 percent of these are empty, respectively. Some three-quarters of unused officers were already vacant a year earlier.