More young adults forced to live with parents amid housing shortage
Young adults are struggling more and more to leave their parental home due to the ongoing housing shortage, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported on Friday. The number of young adults leaving their parental home for their own home in the rental or owner-occupied market dropped by 12 percent between 2023 and 2024.
The number of young adults under 25 starting in the housing market dropped from 125,000 in 2023 to 96,000 in 2024. In the age group 25 to 35, more people got their first home in 2024, but they are also finding it more difficult to leave their parental home, CBS said. “The total number of 25- to 35-year-olds in 2024 rose by 1.7 percent, while the number of people living at home in this age group grew by 5.6 percent.”
In 2024, 518,000 people bought or rented their first home in the Netherlands, down from 560,000 in 2023. The majority of people in this group were immigrants coming to work or study in the Netherlands.
People can also enter the housing market for the first time from an institutional household, for example, refugees moving out of an asylum shelter or convicts leaving a penitentiary after serving their sentence. “The number of people moving from an institutional household remained relatively small in 2024 (22,300 persons), but increased by 13 percent,” CBS said.
In recent years, stricter rent regulations have prompted many landlords to sell their private sector rentals into the owner-occupied market. As a result, fewer newcomers to the housing market started by renting (43 percent in 2024 and 49 percent in 2023) and more started with an owner-occupied home (24 percent in 2024 and 20 percent in 2023).
“However, for starters, the increase in the share of owner-occupied homes does not outweigh the decrease in the share of private rental properties,” CBS said. Compared to 2023, the number of owner-occupied homes bought by newcomers to the housing market grew by over 3,000 in 2024, while the number of private sector rentals leased by this group decreased by nearly 13,000.
In total, first-timers in the housing market moved into 157,000 homes in 2024, compared to 166,000 homes the year before.
The housing shortage has resulted in many young adults postponing major milestones, like moving in with a partner, getting married, or starting a family. Over half of young adults in the Netherlands have decided against having children at all.
