Housing Archives - DutchNews.nl

Social housing fraud and illegal rentals a major issue in Amsterdam

Between 10% and 20% of rent controlled properties owned by big housing corporations in Amsterdam may be illegally sublet, the Financieele Dagblad said on Wednesday. In total, 186,000 properties in the capital are set aside for low income households and research by the paper shows that tens of thousands of official tenants may be committing fraud. The paper and research group Decisive Facts studied adverts on the popular housing rental site Kamernet and compared with them with the corporations' own housing stock. It found large numbers of corporation houses were being rented out via the website, often for two or three times the legal rent. The scale of the fraud is adding to the pressure on the city's housing stock, where just 3% of corporation housing is freed up for new tenants every year. The waiting list for a rent controlled property, with a rent of less than €720 a month, is now 14 years. Hester van Buren, chief executive of the Rochdale housing corporation, told the paper that housing fraud is often committed in combination with social security fraud and other problems. Housing corporations need to work together with the police, tax office and SVB benefit payments agency to properly combat fraud with social housing, she said. More >

New homes go up 50% in price in 3 years

The price of a newly built home in the Netherlands has risen some 50% over the past three years, according to new figures from the national statistics agency CBS. The annual rise is currently around 17%, which is almost double the rise in the sale price of an existing home. The figures are further evidence of the impact of the government's climate change proposals on the housing market, experts say. The average price of a new home in the Netherlands is now nearly €400,000, compared with €292,000 for an existing home. New homes are now being built without connections to the gas grid and have high levels of insulation plus solar panels and heat pump or geothermal heating systems - all of which is more expensive. In addition, many new housing projects are being built in the bigger Dutch cities, where prices are being driven up by the housing shortage. Slovenia is the only place in Europe where house prices are rising faster than the Netherlands, the CBS said. The figures are based on the third quarter of 2018. More >

House rents continue to rise

The rise in rents in non-rent controlled property has slowed down slightly, with Amsterdam showing the smallest increase in the four big cities, according to new research by housing platform Pararius. At the end of last year, new tenants in Amsterdam were paying an average of €1,493 for a 65 square metre flat, a rise of 3.2% on the previous year. In Rotterdam and The Hague the rise was 4%, in Utrecht almost 13%. Nationwide the increase was 4.9%, the first time in 3.5 years that the average rise has dipped below 5%. 'The difference between the previous two quarters may seem small but taking price developments over the past four years, there would appear to be a slow down in the rate of increase,' Pararius director Jasper de Groot said. Almere The biggest rise was Almere, where rents rose over 22% to an average of €815 for a 65 square metre apartment. Real estate agent Marcel Schumacher said the shortage of homes plus the attractiveness of Almere to expats as an alternative to Amsterdam were having an impact. The Pararius figures show that the number of non-rent controlled properties offered to new tenants via the website fell 12% last year. 'We need to increase the size of the mid-market rental sector,' De Groot said. 'But there is really no easy option to solve the shortage homes and the rise in rents.' More >

Cut mortgage tax relief: chief economist

The Dutch government should make further cuts to mortgage tax relief in order to help calm down the 'stormy' housing market, according to Maarten Camps, the economic affairs ministry's most senior civil servant. Camps sets out his vision for the year in his traditional New Year article in economists magazine ESB, which is quoted in the Financieele Dagblad. Instability on the housing market is the most important cause of the erratic nature of the Dutch economy and this is leading to doubts among consumers and damaging economic growth, Camps said. During the most recent crisis, house prices fell 30% in real terms and unemployment soared, Camps said. Now, people starting out in the housing market can't buy because of the surge in house prices and there are major shortages of skilled labour. He welcomed the government's decision to speed up cuts in the mortgage tax relief system from 2020 but said more has to be done. The Netherlands, he said, is one of the few countries in the world where mortgage interest can be deducted from tax. 'Politicians have to take a decision. I simply make recommendations,' Camps said, without going into details. Support In November, Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot called for further cuts in mortgage tax relief, as has the IMF and OECD. From this year, maximum mortgage tax relief rate will go down from 49.5% to 49% – this only affects people in the highest tax band of over €68,507. However, from 2020, the government plans to cut the maximum by 3% a year until it hits 37% which will also impact on lower earners. Housing corporations Camps also said that the government should establish a special housing fund to encourage housing corporations to build at times of economic crisis, when private sector developers slow down. 'This would keep the housing supply on an even keel during a downturn, and you will prevent the shortage mounting up,' he said. 'We currently have a shortage of 140,000 homes.' The state should also consider stepping up its supervision of provincial housing programmes to ensure that the necessary homes actually do get built. More >

Red hot house market cooling: NVM

After months of overheating, the Dutch housing market is feeling a very slight winter chill according to the latest house sale figures. The Dutch estate agents’ association NVM announced on Thursday that although prices are still rising, they appear to be reaching a ceiling. More houses were sold in the last quarter of 2018 than in the rest of the year – at just over 39,000 – but this was a drop of 8% on the same period in 2018. There were also a fifth fewer houses on the market compared to 2017, with ‘for sale’ boards up at around 46,500 properties nationally. The last quarter of the year has, in the past five years, traditionally seen the most sales. ‘In some regions, particularly in Amsterdam, we are slowly reaching the ceiling of constantly rising prices,’ said NVM chairman Ger Jaarsma in a press release. ‘More and more consumers can’t or won’t support ever-increasing prices.’ But the organisation still describes the housing market as dangerously ‘overheated’ – likening it to a Dutch code red weather warning. It has called for 80,000 new homes to be built each year, but expects that not more than 70,000 will be constructed in 2019. Expats The Parool notes that in the ‘dry baked’ Amsterdam market, more expensive houses are increasingly been sold rather than rented according to the capital’s MVA estate agents’ group. ‘It seems that there aren’t so many people in Amsterdam who can rent expensive homes,’ chairman Jerry Wijnen reportedly said. ‘I’m thinking about rentals from €2,000 to €2,500. Lots of expats from companies like Booking.com want to live in the city but on their salaries can only afford half of that.’ This contradicts a claim last week by Amsterdam head of housing Laurens Ivens that 'Amsterdam families' are being squeezed out by the arrival of richer people and a shortage of affordable homes. Amsterdamse gezinnen worden verdrongen door de komst van rijkere mensen en het tekort aan betaalbare woningen. Maatregelen hard nodig: - meer betaalbare woningen bouwen - maximale huurprijs invoeren - voorrang Amsterdammers bij nieuwbouw https://t.co/fyfBiUvm1w — Laurens Ivens (@LaurensIvens) January 2, 2019 More >

Refugees hit by shortage of housing

Some 4,500 refugees with residency permits are still living in refugee centres because local authorities have been unable to find them homes, Trouw reported on Wednesday. Last year, local authorities were able to find permanent accommodation for 18,000 out of 21,000 refugees granted leave to stay in the Netherlands, the paper says. It bases the claim on home affairs ministry figures. Refugee centres have been shrinking as the number of new arrivals dries up, but the number of places has expanded over the past six months because of the shortage of suitable homes, Trouw said. In particular there is a lack of housing for single people, larger families and people with physical handicaps. Since 2017, local authorities have no longer been required by law to prioritise people granted asylum for housing but they are still obliged to provide enough housing for refugees. There is a severe shortage of affordable homes in the Netherlands, and home affairs minister Kajsa Ollongren has backed building sector plans to build 75,000 homes a year by 2025 to fill the need. More >

The Hague plans to build 10,000 new homes

The Hague has agreed to build new apartment blocks next to the city's three biggest railway stations which will offer a total of 10,000 new homes to 'policemen, teachers and bike repair workers'. The buildings will be between 100 and 150 metres high and will be focused around the main railway station, Hollands Spoor and Laan van NOI. Most will be rental housing, the Volkskrant has reported. 'We are not going to fill in green spaces on the edge of the city because we don't have any and we are not going to build new out-of-town residential estates either,' alderman Boudewijn Revis said at the presentation of the plans on Tuesday. 'Nor are we looking for little fields which would fit three houses,' he said. 'We are going to leave existing neighbourhoods alone.' The Hague expects its population to go up by 4,000 to 5,000 a year and to reach 630,000 by 2040. 'We have an urgent need of homes for policemen, teachers and the bike repairman,' Revis said. 'We need to make speed on this.' The city's current population is around 535,000. Between 5,000 and 7,000 homes will be built behind HS railway station in what the council has dubbed the College Campus. Up to 2,000 homes will be built near the Laan van NOI station which has been branded the ICT Security Campus. The former social security ministry building, which was designed by Dutch architect Herman Hertzberger and is next to the station, may be demolished, if a developer comes up with a good plan, Revis said. The rest of the housing will be developed near Centraal Station and the project includes building on top of the A12 motorway. This district has been dubbed the Policy Campus because it is close to both government ministries and the Leiden University building. A draft of the plans was first presented in November last year and the finalised version has now been approved by the city's executive board. More >

Amsterdam VVD wants debate about expats

The local branch of the VVD in Amsterdam has called for a debate with the city's executive board over comments made about expats by two aldermen, according to local broadcaster AT5. Last week, Socialist housing alderman Laurens Ivens reacted to an article on AT5 about the increase in expats moving to the city by saying that 'Amsterdam families are being squeezed out by the arrival of richer people and the shortage of affordable housing.' And he again reiterated the SP's local election campaign call of 'priority for Amsterdammers' in new housing. Amsterdamse gezinnen worden verdrongen door de komst van rijkere mensen en het tekort aan betaalbare woningen. Maatregelen hard nodig: - meer betaalbare woningen bouwen - maximale huurprijs invoeren - voorrang Amsterdammers bij nieuwbouw https://t.co/fyfBiUvm1w — Laurens Ivens (@LaurensIvens) January 2, 2019 A day later, D66 alderman Udo Kok (economic affairs), said on Twitter: 'Good news, ambitious, international knowledge workers are opting in large numbers for Amsterdam'. The VVD, which was ousted as part of the local coalition in last year's elections, says it is surprised by the contrast between the two tweets. 'They give the impression that the housing alderman is criticising the arrival of expats while the economic affairs alderman is welcoming the arrival of this group,' councillor Hala Naoum Nehme told AT5. These conflicting standpoints could be confusing for councillors, companies and residents, she said. The new population figures also gave rise to a spat between the SP's local leader Eric Flentge and Sebastiaan Capel, the D66 leader of Zuid borough council. Capel accused Flentge of xenophobia after he called on the city council to take steps to stop ‘Amsterdammers being displaced by expats and international students’. If a majority of councillors back the call, the debate will take place on January 23 or 24. Research Research by the International Community Advisory Platform has shown that 80% of new expats get no help with housing costs and a large majority said they are paying more than they can afford for a place to live. Some 25% of people considered to be expats earn less than €3,000 a month which would entitle them to social housing. Flentge told DutchNews.nl in an email that he considered the exploitation of expats and international students by dodgy landlords to be a growing problem. More >

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