Plans to reduce the amount of money house buyers can borrow will make it very difficult for starters to get a foot on the housing ladder, real estate agents and mortgage providers say.

On Tuesday, the financial services authority AFM said home owners would no longer be able to borrow more than the value of their home, meaning they will now have to save up enough money to pay legal fees and taxes.
And the AFM says banks must be stricter about lending people more than 4.5 times their salary.
First-time buyers
‘This will be deadly for the housing market and first-time buyers in particular,’ said a spokesman for home owners lobby group VEH in the Volkskrant.
‘First-time buyers keep the housing market going. If that part of the market stagnates, the market for people moving on to their next home will stop completely,’ Ron Bavelaar, director of mortgage advice group Hypotheekshop, told the paper.
The AFM says the measures are necessary to stop home owners getting into financial difficulty.
House prices in the Netherlands fell by over 3% in the first three months of this year.