Buyers increasingly looking outside their region in search for affordable homes

Affordable, newly built homes are increasingly being purchased by people from outside the municipality, the Kadaster, the Dutch land registry, reported after comparing figures from 2019 and 2024. In large cities, in particular, a relatively large number of buyers come from further afield. These are often young households.

Because affordable housing is becoming increasingly difficult to find, people are more willing to move further afield, sometimes even to completely different regions.

The Kadaster defines an affordable home as a home that costs no more than the affordability threshold, which the government sets each year. In 2025, this is €405,000.

The supply of this type of home had declined in recent years. In 2019, the Kadaster recorded approximately 11,000 transactions involving newly built homes below the affordability threshold. Last year, there were about 7,000, representing a quarter of all new-build sales.

In 2019, 16 percent of buyers of affordable new homes came from outside the municipality, compared to 21 percent last year. In almost one in three municipalities, more than half of these buyers came from elsewhere.

Those who want to stay in their own municipality and are looking for a home there, therefore, face more competition from outside.

Since last year, municipalities have been allowed to give priority to buyers from within their own municipality for affordable new homes. There are conditions attached, including that municipalities are only allowed to do this for half of the affordable new homes.