Dutch home sales set new record at €468,000; Up 7.2% in 2024, up 13.6% since last year

Home sales prices in the Netherlands rose by 13.6 percent over the past 12 months to a new record-high average of 468,000 euros, the Dutch realtor association NVM said on Thursday in an analysis of the second quarter of 2024. This topped the previous record of 451,000 euros set exactly two years earlier, with prices having now increased for five straight quarters after a brief dip in the market. Compared to Q1, homes were 7.2 percent more expensive - “an exceptional increase that has only occurred once before since 1995,” the NVM said.

The results mean the housing market has now soared above the previous peak of 451,000 euros set during the second quarter of 2022. After that, the market fell by 8.9 percent, with home buyers paying an average of 410,000 euros.

“Prices are skyrocketing due to the tight market, good financing, income increases, and, therefore, consumer confidence,” said Lana Gerssen, chairman of the NVM Housing department. Higher wages and lower mortgage interest rates meant that homeseekers had more to spend, and that showed. Two-thirds of homes were sold above the asking price in the second quarter. On average, the sales price was 4.3 percent higher than the asking price.

The impact of overbidding on the notoriously demand-driven real estate market was already becoming clear in previous quarters. Prices of owner-occupied homes were 9.1 percent higher during the first three months of the year compared to the first quarter a year earlier. That sent prices to an average of 432,000 euros. About 55 percent of sales were above the asking price, which lifted the average sales price to 1.8 percent higher than the average asking price.

NVM realtors sold over 35,000 existing owner-occupied homes in April, May, and June 2024. That is 3 percent more than a year earlier and 18 percent more than in the previous quarter. Homes were on the market for an average of 27 days before being sold, seven days less than the previous quarter and a year earlier.

The recovery in the housing construction market continued in the second quarter, the NVM said. Its realtors sold 7,300 newly-built homes in the second quarter, a massive 70 percent more than a year earlier and an increase of 1 percent compared to the first quarter. The supply of newly built homes increased by 11 percent quarter-on-quarter to 15,200 in Q2 of 2024. Partly due to that, the average price of a newly built home decreased by 1.2 percent in the second quarter to 475,000 euros.

“It is a positive sign that new construction is growing,” Gerssen said, but she added that the growth is not enough to meet the increasing demand for housing. “We need more homes and the right homes. At the right location and with local demand as a starting point, without focusing completely on the first-time buyer segment. That does not really expand the market, and it certainly does not contribute to the necessary flow.”

The NVM wants to meet with the newly appointed Minister Mona Keijzer of Housing and Spatial Planning to discuss the approach to tackling the housing shortage. “Because with a practical approach, investors also find their way to developing new construction. We now need to take the step from discussing to building,” Gerssen said.