There is such a shortage of affordable flats to rent in Amsterdam that families with just below average earnings are finding it impossible to live there, the Parool says on Friday.

The gap between rising rents and static incomes is stretching every year, says Gerjoke Wilmink, director of the family spending institute Nibud.

‘It is not only people on minimum incomes who are being hit,’ Wilmink told the paper. Families with annual income of €40,000 have to rent in the private sector, but ‘there is a major shortage of housing with rent of between €720 and €1,050 a month,’ Wilmink said.

Planner Gert Middelkoop told the Parool this city centre has become ‘a sort of hotel’.

Investors are only building ‘tiny houses for youngsters or students’ who will live there for a short period, he said. ‘That is what makes a profit.’

‘Rents are rising sharply in the non-rent controlled sector,’ said Delft University professor Marja Elsinga. ‘That is the policy to attract investors. Amsterdam is an attractive city. Investors know they can make good money and so the rents go up.’

The city council can tackle the problem but it depends on how keen officials are to have middle-income households, the Parool says. ‘Perhaps [officials] think they can perfectly well live in Purmerend,’ Elsinga told the the paper.