There is more evidence that the rise in house prices is slowing, with the increase recorded in March down for the second month in a row.

House prices for existing buildings were up 19.5% year on year in March, compared with 20.2% in February and 21% in January, when they reached a peak.

The figures are based on completed transactions which have been registered in the land registry Kadaster and information from national statistics agency CBS.

House prices reached a low in June 2013, at the height of the financial crisis, and have been increasing steadily since then. They are now 94% higher than nine years ago.

At the same time, the total number of transactions continues to decline, and was down 37% on a year ago in March, the CBS said. In the first quarter as a whole, nearly 44,000 properties changed hands, down 34% on the same period in 2021.

Cooling breeze

Earlier this month real estate agents association NVM said house prices in the Netherlands actually dropped 2.1% in the first three months of this year, when compared with the final quarter of 2021.

More than that, its members had slightly more homes on the market – 17,000 at the end of March, which is up 10% on the end of 2021.

The annual price rise now averages at just under 14%, compared with over 20% in most of 2021 – and that could mean that a ‘cooling breeze is blowing over the overheated market,’ according to NVM director Onno Hoes.