Existing home prices up 9% to record high

Despite the coronavirus crisis, housing prices in the Netherlands are still rising. In October, existing owner-occupied homes were 9.1 percent more expensive than in the same month last year - the highest price increase in almost two years. The average home in the Netherlands now costs a record 350,244 euros, Statistics Netherlands reported on Friday.

Home prices in the Netherlands have been increasing since 2013, when the housing market hit a low point in the financial crisis. After a temporary slow down in 2019, prices are now increasing even faster. "In October 2020, the index was at its highest level ever," the stats office said. Compared to 2013, home prices were 54 percent higher in October.

Statistics Netherlands chief economist Peter Hein van Mulligen is surprised that home prices continue to increase in the coronavirus pandemic. "This does not fit with a crisis," he said. "In the previous crisis there was even a price drop. Now the opposite is happening."

In October, 22,146 homes changed ownership, according to figures from the Land Registry. That is 18 percent more than in October 2019. In the first 10 months of the year, 190,854 homes were sold, 7 percent more than the same period last year.