Home owners and new buyers made over half a million mortgage requests last year, a new record, according to mortgage information network HDN.

The total is up nearly 25% on 2019 at 535,375 applications, HDN said. Nearly all mortgage providers in the Netherlands are part of the HDN network.

The biggest leap is in requests for new or extended mortgages to cover home improvements, which were up by 50%. Low interest rates also prompted a record number of home owners to switch mortgages, HDN said.

Nevertheless, the number of new mortgages was also up by almost 11%, with buyers requesting an average of € 312,100 to fund their new home.

‘It has been a bizarre year,’ said HDN director Merlyn van den Berg. ‘Mortgage applications poured in in March and April, while many experts believed that the mortgage market would collapse.’