Expert: Low mortgage rates fueling heated Amsterdam housing market

Low mortgage rates are one of the main drivers of the rapidly growing Amsterdam real estate market, said Ger Hukker, chairman of the real estate brokers’ association NVM in the Netherlands. He also believes that the lower price tag, compared to other capitals like London and Paris, is a big draw for expats. “The market is unevenly distributed. A large social rental sector, a small selling sector, little new construction and a great deal of interest from young, working people with relatively high incomes,” Hukker told BNR. Many also see the housing market as an investment, pushing prices up. “People are going to buy apartments with all sorts of intentions in Amsterdam, like, for example, to rent it through Airbnb,” Hukker stated. He does not think that the city’s plans to build new homes will deter the red-hot market. His fear is that a bust could take place if people did not learn lessons from the economic crisis. He called it “madness” that people are willing to pay extraordinarily high premiums above listed sale prices to buy homes in Amsterdam. Amsterdam home prices shot up 9.7 percent last year, but still sit 3.6 percent blow their value in 2008. The prices of homes sold in the fourth quarter of 2015 were up 17 percent compared to the same period in 2014, far exceeding the national average of five percent.