The rents being agreed between landlords and tenants for new contracts in the non rent-controlled sector have fallen for the first time in six years, according to housing rental platform Pararius.

The average square metre price a new tenant is paying has gone down by 0.4% in the third quarter, to an average of €16.56m, Pararius said. The first signs of the drop were already noticeable in the second quarter in the big cities.

The sharpest drop has been in Eindhoven, where new rents are down just over 7%, taking the price of a 60 square metre flat to €824.40. In Amsterdam, new tenants are paying an average of €1,325.40 for the same size, a decline of almost 6% in the second quarter.

Rents are also down in The Hague and Utrecht but not in Rotterdam, where there was a marginal increase.

‘The shortage of property was driving prices up in the cities,’ says Pararius director Jasper de Groot. ‘But there are limits, and at some point, people looking for a home can no longer afford to pay the high prices.’

In addition, fewer international workers are looking for a home and landlords are cutting their prices to make sure properties don’t remain empty, he said. ‘Covid-19 has been a catalyst for the current drop in rents.’

Experts told DutchNews.nl last month that there is little evidence international workers are leaving the Netherlands because of the coronavirus epidemic, but that fewer people are arriving.