housing market

The municipality of Amsterdam is working on implementing a rental ban on new owner-occupied homes, in an attempt to prevent new homes from being bought up by investors and then rented out for hefty sums, the municipality said in a press statement. The ban will not only apply to the first buyer, but also to the people who later buy the home.

Up until 2022 another 10,500 homes and rooms will be built for students and young people in Amsterdam and surrounding region - 9 thousand in Amsterdam and 1,500 in the surrounding municipalities, the city of Amsterdam announced. 

The wealth of the median Dutch household increased significantly in 2017, rising by 6 thousand euros to 28,300 euros. This is mainly due to substantial price increases on the housing market, Statistics Netherlands reports. If homeownership is taken out of account, the median wealth increased only slightly compared to 2016 to 14,100 euros. 

Statistics Netherlands looked at all the assets and debts of Dutch households. Savings and investment mortgages are not included in these figures as the stats office was not given access to that data. Pensions are also not included.

Amsterdam housing corporations are struggling with housing fraud on a large scale. They estimate that between 10 and 20 percent of their 186 thousand homes are being illegally sublet, Financieele Dagblad reports after speaking with Ymere, Rochdale and Stadgenoot - the three large housing corporations in Amsterdam.

The price to rent a home in the Netherlands continued to rise in the second half of 2018. The average rent increased by 2.9 percent. The average price per square meter increased by 5.9 percent, according to realtors association NVM and real estate managers association VGM, ANP reports.

The madness on the Amsterdam housing market seems to have reached a new low point with an ad for a room for rent on Kamernet.nl, which RTL Nieuws discovered. The six square meter room was advertised for 878 euros per month. The ad has since been removed.

The municipality of Amsterdam plans to construct 52,500 new homes in the next seven years, responsible alderman Laurens Ivens announced. The main risk for these ambitious construction plans may be the shortage of construction workers, he said, AD reports.

"The plans are there. Hopefully we can find enough construction workers and the state will cooperate", Ivens said while presenting the municipality's plans on Thursday. The city wants to build 7,500 homes per year in its period of government. The rest will be built in the years thereafter.

Amsterdam rose to the 5th place on Swiss bank UBS's ranking of cities with the highest risk of a house price bubble. In these cities home prices rose so fast compared to inhabitants' incomes, that there is a good chance that the housing market will collapse, Het Parool reports.

Hong Kong is first on the ranking, followed by Munich, Toronto and Vancouver. Amsterdam rose from 8th place last year to 5th this year, passing Sydney, London and Stockholm.

Ten years after the outbreak of the credit crisis, the average selling prices of existing owner-occupied homes in the Netherlands are back on the level of 2008. Though the recovery can mainly be seen in the Randstad area. Prices in the big cities are now far above the 2008 level. But in many places outside the Randstad, house prices are still lower than before the crisis, Statistics Netherlands reported on Wednesday.

The prices of existing homes in the Netherlands increased by 8.8 percent in the second quarter compared to a year earlier, reaching a record high. The number of home sales decreased almost everywhere in the country, Statistics Netherlands and the Land Registry reported on Friday.

A third of the homes sold in the Netherlands in the second quarter of 2018 were sold above the asking price - the first time ever that overbidding happened so often in the country, according to the Dutch association of realtors NVM. In early 2014 only 5 percent of homes were sold at above asking price, RTL Nieuws reports.