More evidence that house price rises are slowing after January peak

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.