Housing market milestone: Netherlands now has 8 million homes

The Dutch housing market reached an important milestone in June - the 8 millionth home was added to the Netherlands' housing stock, Statistics Netherlands reported on Thursday. The 7 million homes milestone was reached in 2005.

A total of 39 thousand homes were added to the Netherlands' housing stock in the first six months of 2021. In absolute terms, Amsterdam got the most new homes at 39 thousand. Relatively, Roermond saw the biggest increase in number of homes at 4.4 percent.

With 1.7 million and 1.4 million respectively, the most homes are located in Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland. Noord-Brabant is in third place with 1.2 million. Drenthe, Zeeland and Flevoland are at the bottom of the list, with 225 thousand, 189 thousand, and 176 thousand homes respectively. Altogether, these three provinces only account for 7 percent of the Netherlands' housing stock.

Over the past 100 years, the Netherlands counted more homes every year except during and just after the Second World War. In the war years, the housing stock decreased by 104 thousand homes on balance. 1973 was an amazing year for housing construction with 143 thousand new homes built.