Dutch landlords intend to keep selling rental homes despite plan to relax rent cap law

A wave of rental home sales by private landlords in the Netherlands is showing almost no signs of slowing, even after the government announced planned relaxations to the Affordable Rental Housing Act, according to a new survey of more than 1,100 landlords.

Nearly four in five respondents said they will not halt sales of their rental properties despite the planned changes. Only 6 percent said the proposed relaxations would prompt them to stop selling and resume renting out the homes.

The findings come from Vastgoed Belang, the association representing private landlords, which conducted the poll in response to the adjustments announced by Housing and Spatial Planning Minister Elanor Boekholt-O'Sullivan.

The changes would allow landlords to charge higher rents for expensive homes, new-construction properties and units without a garden or balcony. The minister hopes the moves will encourage landlords to keep more homes on the rental market and free up more properties for the middle-income segment. The revisions are scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.

Niek Verra, chairman of Vastgoed Belang, said the current law is “fundamentally wrong.” Landlords “especially need the confidence that there will be substantial repairs to the law,” Verra said.

A spokesman for the group pointed to the points-based system used to set rents, which factors in living space and home value, as a key flaw. “That system was never intended for the free market,” the spokesman said. “As a result, the yields for landlords are now often too low.”

Vastgoed Belang said six out of seven landlords would stop selling their rental homes if the existing law is improved. “That there is a longer trajectory of legislation beforehand is not bad, as long as the sector knows that the improvement is coming,” the spokesman added.