Homes outside Randstad less and less affordable

Homes outside the Randstad are also becoming less and less affordable, according to De Hypotheker. This is due to the waterbed effect, which means that if houses become more expensive in a certain region, people will start looking outside that region and push home prices higher there. A year ago, the housing market in areas outside the Randstad was still reasonably accessible, said the mortgage advisor. The average mortgage amount increased by over 10 percent.

Zeeland saw the most significant decreases in the number of mortgage applications to purchase a house outside the Randstad. There the number of applications fell by almost a third. This is followed by Overijssel and Drenthe, where nearly a third and a quarter fewer mortgages were applied for respectively.

The increasingly tight housing market also has consequences for the average mortgage amount, which rose by almost 11 percent in a year. The average mortgage is now 325,000 euros, compared to 294,000 in 2020. Northern provinces like Groningen and Friesland rose sharply, as did Noord- and Zuid-Holland. There are differences between the provinces. In Noord-Holland, the average mortgage amount is 375,000 - considerably higher than in Zeeland (241,000 euros).

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) said that only 20,559 homes were sold in December 2021, a fifth fewer than in the same month a year earlier. The average sales price for a newly built home is now around 466,000 euros, realtors' association NVM calculated for the last three months of 2021. An existing house is slightly cheaper at 438,000 euros, but still over a fifth more expensive than in the fourth quarter of 2020.