Investors are buying fewer and fewer homes in big cities | Economy

Owners are buying fewer and fewer houses, especially in large cities. For example, their share in Amsterdam fell from 17 to 9 percent and in Rotterdam from 19 to 8 percent. Pawn shops have also bought fewer houses in Utrecht, The Hague, Groningen and Enschede, as in many smaller municipalities.

According to the Land Registry, the decrease is due to the fact that owners have had to pay more transfer taxes since the beginning of last year. Earlier this year, there was also more room for municipalities to introduce purchase protection. As a result, some houses can only be sold to private individuals who will live there themselves.

In municipalities that introduced this protection, landlords bought on average more than 9 percent of homes for sale in the second half of last year. In the first half of this year – that is, after the introduction of the purchase ban – this percentage dropped to just under 8 percent.

The impact of this measure therefore appears to be quite limited. But according to the land registry, this is partly due to the fact that some municipalities only introduced the protection in February or even in May. Next year there will likely be more clarity on the usefulness of the purchase ban.

In municipalities without purchase protection, the share of investors increased by 1 percentage point.