The Dutch housing market is healing: investors
buying up fewer homes
NEWSECONOMYPOLITICS
& SOCIETY
April 26,
2022
Sarah
O'Leary 🇮🇪
Here’s
something we never thought we’d write — we have some good housing news! Last
year, fewer homes were bought up by investors in the Netherlands. Instead, more
houses were bought by first-time buyers. 🏠
Regular
people? Buying more houses?? Yep. According to the land registry, 2021 saw
investors take a slightly less sizeable chunk of Dutch real estate. This left
room for more first-time buyers to have their chance.
We can
thank the transfer tax
And who is
the knight in shining armour that we can thank for this behaviour change? Sir
transfer tax.
In the
Netherlands, when buying a house you must pay a sizeable chunk of transfer tax
when the deed of the home is passed to you. This is usually 2% of the value of
the home for regular folks.
However, in
2021, the Dutch government introduced a higher transfer tax for those who were
not going to live in the home that they bought — cough, cough — investors. This
tax was raised to 8% of the value of the home.
A hopeful
drop
One year
in, it looks like it’s working. According to the NOS, in 2020, big investors in
the Netherlands bought up a whopping 88,000 houses. However, in 2021, this
dropped to 55,000 — still a scary number, but it’s something.
While it’s
fun to shake our fists at the big investors, the largest competitors for
first-time buyers are actually the smaller investors. However, this group also
bought fewer homes last year, acquiring 6,500 houses.
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