More and more homeowners, like Ms. Du Maine, are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to selling, even though it may mean getting less money for their homes.
For example, Ester Kreuger forbade her broker to sell her and her husband’s house in Utrecht to investors. “We don’t feel comfortable selling the house to a slum landlord who then asks 2000 euros rent per month for it. That is not good for society and not good for the neighborhood,” explains 36-year-old Kreuger.
The couple lives in a maisonette in a suburb of Utrecht. Kreuger’s husband bought the house fifteen years ago, and the value of the house has now more than doubled. “The housing market has been so tense in recent years, you can see that in the price of our own house. If we can do something about it so easily, why shouldn’t we? We don’t care about that last bit of money.”
Nice signal
That’s not because they’re ‘rich stinkers’, Kreuger laughs. “We see the value of money, we work hard for it. But we also see the value of the neighborhood,” says Kreuger. “My husband redecorated the whole house. Our heart and soul is in it, we are attached to it. We want someone to buy this and fall in love with it so much, and appreciate all our blood, sweat and tears that went into it. You want no bastard in it who just wants to make money. The neighborhood doesn’t deserve that.”
The Utrecht woman, who has bought a house in Tiel, also calls on other house sellers not to sell their house to investors. “You are in control of how things go. It is not much work to tell your broker that you do not want this. And so the housing market may become a little less overstrained.”
It will not result in a reduction of the housing shortage, says Conijn, because you do not create new homes with this. “But it is a good signal that people feel socially responsible for this. That can really have a positive effect for first-time buyers.”
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