It is a theme that regularly recurs in election debates: many young people in the Netherlands have difficulty buying a house. There are too few homes, and whoever finds one, often has to put down a considerable amount to be able to offer more than the asking price.
Parties have different ideas for tackling the housing shortage: from a National Housing Plan to a new Ministry of Housing. It begs the question: is the Netherlands the only country where starters have such a hard time? And what is it like for young people on the housing market in our neighboring countries?
Living together as in Friends
Until recently, when it comes to the possibility of buying a house, the Netherlands did quite well from a European perspective, says Peter Boelhouwer. As professor of the housing market at TU Delft and chairman of the European Network for Housing Research he keeps in touch with fellow researchers in other European countries.
The housing shortage that has emerged in recent years affects just about everyone in the Netherlands, Boelhouwer explains. “In other countries they only have to deal with it regionally, but with us there are too few houses almost everywhere. Those who cannot buy can hardly move to the rental sector. Because it is too tight there too.”
That is precisely what is happening in a number of neighboring countries: because it is too expensive to buy, young people tend to rent for a long time, especially in large cities. “In the United Kingdom, for example, the rental sector has doubled in recent years,” says Boelhouwer. “Scenes like in the Friends series, where adults live together in the house, are very common in London. Doctors and lawyers very often live there with others.”
‘A house is not your pension’
This large rental market is also present in Germany, according to correspondent Wouter Zwart. “Of the developed countries, this is pre-eminently the country where little is bought. The rent-to-buy ratio here is about 50-50.”
The fact that young people in Germany only buy their first house at the age of thirty-five is partly due to a housing shortage in the cities, and partly to strict rules from banks, Zwart explains. “Where as a buyer in the Netherlands you can borrow the full purchase price of a house, in Germany it is only seventy percent. Thirty percent of the amount you have to put in yourself. In regions where there are already few houses, it becomes so awful for young people. difficult to get in between. “
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