Dutch housing market shows signs of cooling after rapid growth
The surge in Dutch housing prices seen since mid-2023 has begun to taper off, according to data from Makelaarsland, the Netherlands' largest online NVM real estate agency. "While the housing market remains tight, we are receiving signals that the market is cooling slightly," said Ivor Brevé, director of Makelaarsland in an interview with the Telegraaf.
Makelaarsland observed a "slight shift" in buyer and seller behavior in the last quarter of 2024. Buyers are increasingly making offers below asking prices. According to the real estate agency, 34 percent of transactions in the final three months of the year involved bids below the asking price, compared to 27 percent in the third quarter and 25 percent in the second quarter.
"Until last summer, overbidding was the norm, and most properties attracted excessive interest," said Brevé to the newspaper. "Now, our agents see more opportunities for buyers. While there are still properties selling quickly and well above the asking price, we are also seeing homes with significantly less interest."
"Some sellers are surprised by the moderate interest their properties are receiving," Brevé added. "They thought it was still very much a seller's market, but we've been sensing this change for about three months."
Viewings per property decline
The average number of viewings per property also declined. In the fourth quarter of 2024, properties averaged 7.2 viewings, compared to over nine per property in the three preceding quarters. November and December saw the most noticeable drop in interest, Makelaarsland reported.
The slowdown in buyer interest was most pronounced in the large cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, and The Hague. "In the first three quarters, these cities averaged nearly 13 viewings per property. That figure has now dropped to just over seven," Brevé said. For the first time in years, buyer interest in urban areas is on par with the rest of the country.
Despite the cooling market, the average time it takes to sell a home has remained relatively steady, hovering around six weeks since May.
Whether housing prices truly stagnated in the fourth quarter will become clearer later this week, when the NVM releases its latest sales figures. Recent data from the CBS showed that the prices of existing homes in November were 11.9 percent higher than a year earlier. However, CBS data, based on Land Registry records, typically lags three months behind real-time sales transactions reported by real estate agencies.
