Hopeful home owners check out the options on Open House Day

The search facility is intended for real estate professionals such as notaries and estate agents. Photo: DutchNews.nl
Photo: DutchNews.nl

Estate agents’ organisation NVM held its first ‘open house day’ in three years this weekend, in an effort to ramp up interest in homes that have been on the market for some time.

In total, 11,000 houses were open for visitors and some 55,000 potential buyers saw at least one property for sale, the NVM said. The last open day took place in 2019, but a shortage of housing and coronavirus restrictions put paid to the event for the past two years.

Although there is still a lack of supply, estate agents say that some properties remain on the market for several months – often because they are overpriced, need substantial work or are in a less attractive area.

At the same time, rising interest rates are reducing the amount potential buyers can borrow.

Mortgage advisory group De Hypotheker says it dealt with 7% fewer mortgage requests in the third quarter of this year.

However, there was a sharp rise –13% – in the number of requests made by people under the age of 35 – indicating that the government’s decision to scrap transfer tax for young first-time buyers may be having an impact.

‘Youngsters would appear to be benefiting from the increase in housing supply, but there is still a real shortage,’ commercial director Menno Luiten said.

Rising interest rates have result in lower borrowing capacity and the average mortgage taken out to buy a house is now €309,000, down 5% on a year ago, De Hypotheker said. Interest rates have more than doubled to around 4.5% in a year.

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