Housing Archives - Page 3 of 23

Private investors are snapping up houses, further squeezing the market: reports

Houses coming on the market in the bigger Dutch cities are being snapped up by investors and rented out for high prices, according to researchers at Amsterdam University and the Catholic University of Leuven. The report, quoted in the AD, says the private rental sector in the Netherlands has expanded by 23.4% since 2012. The issue is not confined to Amsterdam and the other biggest cities, but has also become a factor in regional housing markets, the paper says, adding that private investors now own more than 10% of the homes in Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Groningen and Maastricht. ‘Small and large investors are driving up prices, making it more and more impossible to find somewhere to live if you don’t have capital and earn too much for the rent-controlled sector,’ researcher Cody Hochstenbach told the AD. Apartments and studios smaller than 50 square metres are the most attractive to investors, who are now behind 30% of these buys. The research was carried out on behalf the Dutch socialist party SP, which is calling for action to make sure people who buy homes actually live in them. ‘If you buy a house, you or a family member should live in it,’ SP leader Lilian Marijnissen said in a reaction. Platforms Meanwhile, the Financieele Dagblad reports that a substantial proportion of the rooms and houses in Amsterdam being let via Airbnb are owned by professional landlords, despite efforts by the city to prevent the practice. The claim follows a report by real estate consultant Colliers and The Hague Hotel School using information scraped from the site on a daily basis by data analyst AirDNA. Slum landlord The research shows that wealthy property owners play a prominent role on the letting site, the paper said. ‘These are wealthy individuals who meet the demand for overnight stays,’ said spokesman Dirk Bakker. ‘I call it the slum landlord 2.0.’ Over 14% of the supply in Amsterdam is controlled by the owners of between three and ten houses on Airbnb, according to the study. Amsterdam’s own rules state the owner who lets a room must be registered as living at the address. Airbnb told DutchNews.nl that the Colliers report is wrong. 'This report uses false data long-criticised by policymakers in Amsterdam,' a spokesman said. Hotel industry 'It is written by advisers to the hotel industry and is designed to protect their financial interests. Unlike other companies, Airbnb has worked with Amsterdam to promote responsible home sharing; the vast majority of hosts in these cities - nine out of ten - share only one listing, and hosts in Amsterdam are automatically blocked from sharing their home for more than 60 nights a year. 'And while big hotels take vast sums of money out of the places they do business, up to 97 cents of every euro spent on Airbnb accommodation stays with local families and boosts their communities.' More >

Student room shortage hits Groningen

Foreign students in Groningen are experiencing such problems finding somewhere to live that university staff have even been asked to rent them rooms. The Volkskrant said on Tuesday that tents have been put up on one campus to house homeless students while others are being offered a month's accommodation in a boat hotel for almost €1,300. One student, Michael Aidi, who is half Romanian, half Lebanese, has replied to over 100 adverts on Kamernet, the website where student rooms are advertised, without success. He hopes to take a Master's degree in advanced materials at the chemistry institute run by Nobel prize winner Ben Ferringa and is now staying in a bed and breakfast, some 20 kilometres from Groningen. 'All the rejections are so disheartening,' he said. 'If I had known this, I would never have come to Groningen.' Other foreign students the Volkskrant spoke to are sleeping on a mattress at student house, which responded to an emergency appeal for places by the student political party DAG. 'We've been lucky and we have been made very welcome,' said Eleonora Kirekchieva from Bulgaria, who is living in the house sitting room and has a place at the Minerva art college. 'But it is not ideal.' Black on white University spokesman Jorien Bakker told the paper that the university has made it clear accommodation is hard to find. 'We have put it down, black on white,' she said. 'Finding a room is difficult, the market is tight and we don't organise anything. If we said there are no rooms in Groningen, then no-one would come... and many foreign students do find somewhere to live.' Some 2,500 foreign students will start a degree in Groningen this year, up by several hundred on last year. The university actively recruits foreign students, particularly outside the EU. 'We want to be an international university with a healthy mix of Dutch and foreign students.' Landlords Earlier this month, Dutch students union Lsvb again sounded the alarm about the way foreign students are being taken advantage of by unscrupulous landlords. ‘They are being exploited by landlords charging high rents and with weird terms and conditions. This can’t go on,’ spokeswoman Geertje Hulzebos told the Parool. ‘This has all been made possible by the shortage of rooms.’ Some 122,000 foreign students attended courses at Dutch universities and hbo colleges last year, double the 2013 figure. The students usually try and find a place to live from abroad, making it impossible to view the room. The Lsvb says universities and colleges should stop trying to attract foreign students unless they can organise proper accommodation for them. The union, which has set up a housing hotline for foreign students to report problems, made a similar plea in 2017. Read more at DutchNews.nl: Are you a foreign student in the Netherlands? Share your experiences of finding somewhere to live in the comment section below. More >

Student loans hit mortgage potential

Former students are finding it difficult to get a full mortgage if they still have a student loan, according to research by student organisation ISO. Banks are looking at the original amount of debt when looking at mortgage requests and do not take what has been paid off into account, the ISO says. This contravenes a motion passed by MPs in 2015. Today's graduates leave with an average debt of around €21,000 and this reduces the amount someone earning €40,000 can borrow to buy a home by €25.418, ISO said. The student body bases its claims on a poll of the five biggest Dutch mortgage lenders. Students grants were scrapped in 2015 and replaced by loans. The ISO says many former students find they cannot buy a house. ‘Students are told that they can borrow money cheaply, but when it comes to buying a house, they hit a brick wall,’ ISO spokesman Tom van den Brink said in a statement. Student loan body DUO is failing in its duty to properly inform students about the risks attached to a loan, Van den Brink said. Debt register Student loans are not included in the BGK national debt register. The BKR lists credit agreements with banks, mortgage providers and other official credit agencies. However, both the VEH home owners lobby group and the BKR say student debts should be included in the register to prevent home owners taking on irresponsibly high loans and getting into financial trouble later. BKR research in 2016 indicated 39% of former students do not tell their mortgage advisor about their student loan. More >

Rabobank raises house price forecast

Rabobank economists have revised upwards their forecast for house price rises in the Netherlands this year. The bank said earlier house prices would go up by an average 8% but say now the increase is likely to be 8.7% over 2018 as a whole. This is partly because buyers are offering more than the asking price for property. At the same time, the number of sales is going down. The high prices are damaging confidence in the economy and the lack of choice is also having an impact, economist Christian Lennartz said. ‘The lack of houses is one of the most important factors behind the problems in the housing market,’ he said, adding that the fewer permits for new homes have been issued in the past few months. Last year, 242,000 homes changed hands but the total is likely to be no higher than 225,000 this year, the bank said. More >

Social housing waiting lists grow

An increasingly large percentage of newly available rent controlled property in the big Dutch cities is being given to urgent cases, according to research by broadcaster NOS. People with a certificate of urgency have priority over others for social housing - that is housing with a rent of below €710 a month. In Amsterdam, 44% of new social housing lets last year were made to people with certificates, double the 2014 total. 'The certificate of urgency is losing its value,' a spokesman for housing corporation Ymere told NOS. 'Everyone now has to wait for a house.' In addition, the profile of people with a certificate of urgency is changing and more people with psychiatric problems are becoming eligible for social housing as sheltered schemes close down. This, in turn, is having an impact on neighbourhoods which end up with a higher proportion of people who need more help, housing corporations say. For example, in Amsterdam, 273 people who had been some form of residential care were rehoused in social housing in 2015. But last year that shot up to 941. The picture is similar, but the percentages are not as high, in Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague. Waiting times A spokesman for the housing corporation umbrella group Aedes said people in Amsterdam with low incomes 'will never get a rent-controlled home', pointing out that average waiting times are now over 15 years. In Utrecht, it takes 10 years to be allocated a rent-controlled property, in The Hague around 3.5 years and in Rotterdam almost three. Most property in the Netherlands with a rent of below €710 is earmarked for people earning less than below €36,400 a year. A small proportion can be rented to households with an income of up to €40,349. However, Dutch rental housing rules mean that landlords cannot evict tenants who earn more than the limit. For the past five years, social housing landlords have been allowed to raise rents by up to 4% above the rate of inflation for high earners in an effort to encourage them to leave. Around 30% of rent-controlled properties are lived in by people who technically earn too much, according to research by Aedes. More >

Amsterdam holiday-let campaign 'working'

The battle by Amsterdam council against property owners illegally renting rooms to tourists appears to be paying off, city officials said on Wednesday. The number of closures of illegal hotels fell by 10% in the first half of the year, and this shows the crackdown 'appears to be paying off', the city said in a statement. In the first half of this year, officials handed out 71 fines to people who did not register the lets or who had illegally rented out their property. A further 77 fines were given to property owners who had illegally rented out their property to multiple occupants. The number of complaints made to the council hotline fell to 1,394 from 1,572 in the 2017 first half. ‘This decline is partly due to the fact that fewer buildings are being bought by investors hoping to cash in on illegal rentals to tourists,’ Laurens Ivens, the alderman for housing, told the Telegraaf. More >

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