Dutch Housing Market Quarterly: Sales surge and prices continue to rise

The supply of owner-occupied homes has recently seen a considerable increase. This is mainly due to investors selling their rental properties (the so-called “sell-off wave”) because of the deteriorated investment climate: Initial monthly rents have been capped by the Affordable Rent Act, and housing investments are taxed more heavily. Despite this, house prices have risen sharply in the first half of 2025. Existing owner-occupied homes were 8.6% more expensive in July - the most recent month for which CBS figures are available - than in the same month a year ago (see figure 2). This means that buyers paid more than 38,000 euros more for an average owner-occupied home sold than those who bought their home a year ago.

Increased supply and declining affordability have slowed price growth

The fact that prices are still rising rapidly despite an increase in supply illustrates the high demand for owner-occupied housing. Without the extra supply, prices would probably have risen much faster. This means that the market remains very tight: Selling times have not increased (NVM 2025; Dutch only). The extra supply also hasn’t led to a proportional decrease in the average number of people per home who contact a real estate agent via Funda. This, too, has recently remained virtually stable (Funda Index 2025; Dutch only). The sharp increase in prices implies that the demand for housing has risen faster than the supply in the past year. The increase in demand is related to both wage growth and population growth. It is also conceivable that some people are no longer looking for housing in the rental sector, but actively looking for a home to buy instead. After all, the supply in the rental sector is drying up rapidly as a result of the changing investment climate. According to housing platform Pararius (Dutch only), there were at least 36% fewer houses for rent in the private rental sector in the second quarter of this year than a year ago.

Although prices are still rising at a historically high rate (see figure 2), we have seen this growth rate slow down since November of last year. The declining growth rate can be explained by the increase in supply and by the (at least nationally) declining affordability of owner-occupied homes. Since the beginning of 2024, the price index of existing owner-occupied homes by Statistics Netherlands has once again risen significantly faster than wages, despite the price-depressing effect of the wave of sales. Former rental properties are generally cheaper than the average owner-occupied home sold (Kadaster 2025), slightly reducing the average transaction price.