House prices rise over 20% in December as supply dries up

Average house prices were up by a record 20.4% in December when compared with the year-earlier period, national statistics office CBS said on Monday.

The increase is the highest ever recorded by the CBS, which has been monitoring house price movements since 1995.

Averaged over the year, the increase was 15.2%, almost twice the 2020 figure but in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, the increase was below the national average, the CBS said.

House prices in the Netherlands fell sharply in 2008, when the financial crisis hit, reaching a low in June 2013. Since then, however, they have risen steadily and are now 85% higher than nine years ago.

The high prices have been stimulated by low interest rates and the shortage of supply with the biggest annual rise – 16% – for semi-detached properties.

The CBS figures are based on information from the Kadaster land registry office and are in line with those published earlier this month by estate agents organisation NVM.

The new cabinet includes a specialist housing and planning minister for the first time in 10 years. Former health minister Hugo de Jonge has been charged with ensuring 100,000 new homes come on the market a year.

In the final quarter of 2021, just 8,800 new properties came on the market, the lowest total since 2013.