Home buyers, on average, moving further away than decade ago: Land Registry

People buying a home are moving further away on average than homebuyers ten years ago, the Land Registry reported in new research. Over half of homebuyers still purchase a home within their own municipality.

In the fourth quarter of last year, homebuyers moved an average of 13.6 kilometers, nearly 3 kilometers further than ten years earlier. According to the Land Registry, the coronavirus period further reinforced this trend. At its peak in 2022, buyers moved over 16 kilometers away from their previous home. From 2023 onward, the average moving distance declined slightly again, reaching approximately the level of just before the pandemic at the end of 2025.

Buyers from the west of the Netherlands moved further on average. There, the average moving distance rose from 11 kilometers to over 18.5 kilometers in ten years. The Land Registry believes this is because home prices in the area rose relatively faster than in the rest of the Netherlands and the housing market there tightened more quickly.

The percentage of people buying a home in their own municipality is also shrinking. In 2025, over 58 percent of homebuyers in the Netherlands bought in the municipality where they were already living. In 2015, this was still 64 percent. The share of buyers from outside neighboring municipalities increased during that period.

Homebuyers in large cities are generally more rooted and relatively often buy a new home in the city where they already live. The share of local buyers was also high in smaller municipalities like Urk and Bunschoten. Conversely, the municipality of Culemborg, in the province of Gelderland, had the highest share of inflow from the Randstad last year, at 42 percent.

The Land Registry conducted the study against the backdrop of municipalities that are increasingly concerned that buyers from outside the municipality are limiting the accessibility of the local housing market for local buyers. The Land Registry concluded that buyers from outside the area primarily purchase homes in the same segment as locals who move from one owner-occupied home to another. They less frequently compete with local first-time buyers.

However, there is indirect competition with first-time buyers, as buyers from outside the area purchased homes that locals moving up the property ladder could have bought. "Those movers would have sold their own home within the municipality. A local first-time buyer could have purchased that home, which is often relatively inexpensive. In about half of the cases, a local first-time buyer actually purchased the old home of a local home mover," researchers wrote.