Home sales prices fell by a sharp 6% last quarter
The Dutch housing market is cooling down, the realtors’ association NVM confirmed on Thursday. In the third quarter of this year, house prices fell by 5.8 percent compared to the second quarter. Although the average sales price fell in three months' time, it remained 2 percent higher compared to a year ago.
A decrease of 5.8 percent is the biggest quarter-on-quarter-decline that the NVM has ever measured. “The average selling price of an existing home was 425,000 euros in the third quarter of 2022,” the NVM said in a statement. That was down from about 450,000 euros in the second quarter.
In some regions, the price drop compared to quarter two was even more significant than the national average. In IJmond, Haarlem, and Greater Amsterdam, home prices fell by about 8 or 9 percent.
The cool wind blowing through the housing market can also be seen in other figures. The housing supply last quarter was 80 percent higher than a year earlier and 22 percent higher than the previous quarter. “In the third quarter of 2022, more than 30,000 homes were on offer at NVM real estate agents. The considerably increased supply and the moderate development regarding the sales price provided more space and choice on the market.”
The average number of viewings per home for sale dropped from nearly 10 in 2021 to almost 5 in July. And the average number of bids fell from 3.2 in January to 2.2 in July. “Despite this decrease, 64% of all homes sold in the third quarter still closed above the asking price. The average home sales price was 3% above the asking price.“
NVM real estate agents sold almost 32,500 homes in the past quarter, about the same as a year earlier and 10 percent less than in the previous quarter.
“The extremely heated market of the past year and a half has reached a turning point,” acting NVM chair Lana Gerssen commented to NOS. “The influence of the increased mortgage interest rate, the sky-high energy costs, and inflation take the madness out of the market. The growing housing supply and a decrease in the average selling price make the owner-occupied housing market a bit friendlier.”
Gerssen added that the housing market is by no means back to normal. “With more supply, the options for buyers increase. That can also help the first-time buyer. But with a shortage of over 300,000 homes, our brokers still have to say no to too many people.”
The average home price was still 2 percent higher than in the same quarter last year, but the increase was significantly smaller than in the previous quarters. In the second quarter of 2022, prices still rose by about 11 percent compared to a year earlier. In the first quarter, the price increase was 14 percent.
