Netherlands sees biggest existing home price increase in two decades

In the first quarter of 2021, the average price for existing owner-occupied homes increased 10.3 percent compared to a ear earlier, the highest increase in nearly 20 years. The average price for a newly built owner-occupied home was 16.9 percent higher than in the first quarter last year - the biggest increase since 2015, Statistics Netherlands reported on Monday.

The first quarter of 2021 was the fifth consecutive quarter in which Netherlands' home prices were higher than the same quarter a year earlier and that the increase was higher than the previous quarter.

In the first quarter, 66,627 existing owner-occupied homes and 6,794 new owner-occupied homes were sold, respectively 29.2 percent and 4.2 percent more than a year earlier. "The 2020 trend, in which the number of transactions for both existing and newly-built owner-occupied homes was higher in all quarters than a year earlier, continued in the first quarter of 2021," the stats office said.

Taking both existing- and newly built owner-occupied homes into account, Netherlands home prices increased by 11.3 percent in the first quarter - significantly higher than the European Union average of a 6.1 percent increase. The Netherlands saw the fifth highest increase after Luxembourg's 17 percent, 15.3 percent in Denmark, 12 percent in Lithuania and 11.9 percent in the Czech Republic.