Households with a modal income of €44,000 need at least an additional €100,000 to be able to take out a mortgage and buy the average home, the government’s macro-economic think tank CPB said on Tuesday.

Up to 2018, households on an average income were able to buy a home with a mortgage based on their own salaries, but since then the gap between house prices and incomes has widened substantially, the agency said.

“In 2015, average-income households could buy 61% of the homes on offer at that time, but by 2024 that had gone down to 21%,” the CPB said. “For homes in the big four cities, the figure is just 18%.”

By the end of last year, the average price of a home in the Netherlands had topped €500,000, with prices rising faster than inflation for the third year in a row. Households now need at least twice the modal income to buy the average home.

The CPB says the new government needs to implement policies that increase housing supply and phase out tax advantages for owner-occupied homes.

“Building more homes and making better use of the existing housing stock, for example by splitting properties into separate units, would increase supply and improve access,” the CPB said.