Fifth more permits for housing construction issued in second quarter

In the second quarter of 2024, building permits were issued for the construction of 18,800 homes. That is 3,300 more than a year earlier, an increase of 21 percent, Statistics Netherlands reported. Compared to the first quarter, housing construction permits increased by 2,700 or 17 percent.

The number of issued housing construction permits is an indicator of how many homes will be built in the coming period. The average lead time from the permit to the home is about two years. The figures don’t include new homes created by converting other buildings into homes.

Multiple new homes can fall under one issued permit. In the second quarter, the average number of homes per issued permit increased to over 10. Since 2021, the number of granted permits covering between 2 and 25 homes decreased, while the permits covering 25 or more homes increased. “More than half of the permits granted are intended for the construction of just one home,” CBS said.

Construction costs skyrocketed in recent months, and that continued to be the case in the second quarter. The permitted construction costs for all homes amounted ot 4.0 billion euros, 16 percent more than in the second quarter of 2023. Construction costs for newly built homes increased by 25 percent to 3.5 billion euros, and costs for renovating existing homes increased by 23 percent to 474 million euros.

For commercial buildings, the permitted construction costs amounted to 2.5 billion euros, an increase of 37 percent. New construction costs were 2.0 billion euros (+44 percent), and renovations were 591 million euros (+18 percent).

The increasing costs are putting pressure on the sector’s turnover. Construction turnover was 1.9 percent higher in the second quarter of 2024 than in the same period a year earlier. In the second quarter of 2023, turnover increased by 7.8 percent compared to a year earlier. “This is the fifth quarter in a row that the turnover growth is lower than the growth in the same quarter a year earlier,” CBS said.