Housing corporations should sell their expensive homes to build social housing: minister

Housing corporations should sell off their more expensive properties and use the money to build more rent-controlled homes, housing minister Stef Blok says in an interview with Trouw.

In total, the corporations own 75,000 houses with a rent of more than €710 a month – the limit for the social housing sector. ‘The corporations are putting their money in an old sock, when they could be spending it on their key role,’ Blok told the paper.

The Netherlands will need an additional 100,000 rent-controlled properties in the coming years and the corporations are doing their tenants a ‘disservice’ by not building more, the minister said.

However, the minister said he has no plans to force corporations to sell of their more expensive homes.

Housing corporations blame a special tax introduced by Blok for their reluctance to build more affordable homes. In total, they pay €1.7bn to the treasury every year and say this has reduced their spending power considerably.