The recovery on the Dutch housing market continued throughout 2015, with a 22% rise in the number of homes changing hands by the end of the year, the real estate agents’ association NVM said on Thursday.

‘The contrast with the crisis years of 2012 and 2013 is enormous,’ said chairman Ger Hukker. In those years, house sales were down 40% on last year’s total, he said.

Apartments in cities were in particular demand and prices are rising much more sharply than those for detached or terraced houses. ‘Average prices are still 10% down on the start of the economic crisis but are 10% up on their low point,’ Hukker said.

In Amsterdam, the market is on the verge of overheating, with more homes changing hands for above the asking price. Prices in the Dutch capital rose some 17% in 2015 as whole, the NVM said.