Housing market boom continues; more mortgages and real estate agents

House prices in the Netherlands rose 7.4% in April compared with the year earlier period, the biggest increase in 15 years.

The figures come from the land registry office and national statistics bureau CBS and show that house prices have been rising steadily since June 2013.

Advisory group IG&H says that mortgages are now bigger than ever, despite tougher rules on how much people can borrow to buy their own home.

The average mortgage deal signed in the first three months of this year was €281,000, taking the total spent on new mortgages to €23.3bn – the highest volume in 10 years and a 43% rise on the same period in 2016.

In total, 83,000 mortgages were agreed between January and March, of which 55% went to people who were moving to a different house. Just 11% of first quarter mortgages went to first-time buyers.

The housing market boom has also led to a rise in the number of people wanting to be an estate agent, the CBS said on Monday. There are now some 9,110 real estate agencies in the Netherlands, a rise of 10% since the housing crisis hit.

However, there is such a shortage of properties for sale in popular places like Amsterdam and Utrecht that the national real estate agents’ association NVM recently warned that some members will go bust.