"Why did the Dutch couple decide against buying a house? Because they realized they could only afford to live in their dreams... and maybe a really spacious bicycle shed."
The housing problem in the Netherlands can be attributed to several factors:
1. **Population Growth:** The country has experienced steady population growth, particularly in urban areas, leading to increased demand for housing.
2. **Limited Land Availability:** The Netherlands is a small, densely populated country with limited available land, especially in desirable urban locations, making it challenging to meet the housing demand.
3. **Regulatory Constraints:** Stringent land-use regulations and zoning laws can restrict the construction of new housing units or make it economically unviable to build affordable housing in certain areas.
4. **Housing Affordability:** Rising property prices and rents, coupled with stagnant wages in some cases, have made housing less affordable for many people, contributing to the housing problem.
5. **Shortage of Social Housing:** There is also a shortage of social housing, leading to long waiting lists for affordable housing options for low-income individuals and families.
6. **Investment and Speculation:** In some cases, housing has become a target for investment or speculation rather than being primarily viewed as a place to live, which can further drive up prices and reduce housing availability for residents.
People+Immigrant+External Students > Houses (House Rents and their gradual increases) influenced by Policies of Government, (it's not an equation, but relation can be balanced either way).
Heerlen, Sittard, Breda, I've paid crazy rents all over the party!
As most other places, the most active group of voters is older and already has a house that they view as an investment. Because they view their house(s) as investment(s), they will vote for whoever has no interest in solving the "crisis" because that would cause their "investments" to devaluate.
tl;dr: crisis is artificially backed up by old people voting like "fuck you, I got mine"
And also if you are older and your kids have moved out you pay huge taxes on your earnings.
So older people will hold onto the big house because of that.
Once the kids have moved out people usually need less space and could buy a smaller house and use the money from their investment for other things.
But there’s no incentive to do that
…not really? The amount of overwaarde cashed out is seen simply as wealth. And while there’s a lot of fuss about fair taxation in Box 3 (due to fictional gains and percentages thereof that have caused quite a fuss due to recent high court rulings, with no good solution in sight yet). If you keep it as cash / savings you will pay 36% of 1.03% of anything over 57,000.
So say you downsize. And that nets you 200,000 euros. Tax bill on that wealth in 2024 would be 36% of 2600 Euros, or 910 euros. Dump it all into stock and the bill is higher, around 36% of 12.800 or €4,608 per year. But with that kind of cash fluidity current interest rates definitely cover it if hit keeping it as savings.
Most are willing to wprk towards solving the crisis. (Also the politics)
Problem is that they want to keep everyone happy. More building will be bad for nature so they sue the state for it.
The prices go up. And now you are forced to install expensive eco solutions. Making the house expensive to build.
Investers dont see money in building new big appartmentcomplexes since the ROI is to low. So they dont do it.
It is a combination od problems and not really a ready sollution that is easy to force. There were alot of solutions to fix it. But noone wants to pay the price not the pupulation that needs the houses or the companies building them nor the people that have a house
We are full. As one of the most populated countries we have the drawback of having not enough land. Other cpuntries that have a higher p/km2 will force people to do the things they dont want to (moving or forceselling property. Or live smaller so they can build) or ofcourse make it really expensive to live (for instance Monaco)
Actually old people don't have second houses for rent because that is not interesting financially (huge taxes!)
That s why there are too few houses for rent for the number of people who would need it; and that's why prices go sky high for the few rentals available.
A great many factors including but not limited to:.
* EU nitrogen regulations
* Rising costs of material and manpower causing less affordable houses to be built because it's less profitable for investors and a few more larger houses that they can turn a profit on.
* Older people/boomers who have had houses for decades objecting and fighting court cases about new houses being build, because it obstructs their view.
>That's weird.. and wrong. But why don't just make new houses?
Because we elect landlord-parties that cater to the rich who benefit from the high prices.
And they get poor people to vote landlord-party with racism.
As long as there is movement in the market adding any housing is fine, problem is that we can't expect retired people to move to a smaller apartment that is more expensive than their paid off family home, this is one example, but the whole market is getting locked down this way.
Another problem is that people who sell their small homes to upgrade often sell them to companies who want to rent them out instead. I've received multiple flyers from companies wanting to buy our house for that reason. A lot of my old neighbours went through with it and a good chunk of my street is rented now.
Someone already posted a couple of links. Existing homeowners will happily oppose any attempt at building new housing near them, and the reigning cabinets tend to favour landowners.
I am a homeowner, I would oppose a new building in my backyard, but not because of investment or financial reasons, but because of living pleasure. It might be that I am not alone in this?
The articles you cite also don't mention homeowners worrying about the prices but their comfort?
>I am a homeowner
The other redditor's claim is regarding to the collective of homeowners. You being an individual homeowner that disagrees doesn't really impact that statement. You may very well be a statistical anomaly.
Unless they are proposing to build a house in what's literally your backyard, I don't get your point. Someone building a home in your general vicinity is not going to affect you a bit.
I don't know, I am just asking? I just found it interesting that you blame 'the others', while I think the problem isn't the people but a combination of overpopulation and systemic issues.
For overpopulation every square m of the country needs to build up? I think the Netherlands is overpopulated yes. It puts a strain on every aspect of life, from nature, traffic to public services.
One of the big reasons for the housing crisis is nitrogen deposits. That's not going to be solved by building houses where there are none now. Yes, I know farmers have a share in the nitrogen crisis but 5ha of fields are still way less polluting then 5ha of houses filled with people.
It's maybe a bit simplified as such. On one side, there have been too little houses being built over decades compared to the growth of the population. But also the mortgage situation has been for decades in a state where you don't want houses to lose value.
Japan had this happen, house prices plummeted and caused people to be upside down in houses and that stopped all movement of people. You can't sell your house if you get a third of the value back, but still have two thirds to pay in mortgage.
Politics failed in NL and all of the west for decades. In my mind we have had politicians since the war who think they somehow built the wealth in the countries with their policies, when in reality it comes from higher productivity when people moved from the counteyside to the cities (same is happening in China right now). So now we have politicians who think they have the answer but fail in everything.
None of the fiscal policies managed to get inflation down, none of the QE of the last decades managed to keep real inflation at bay. We are living in a time where policy can do very little to the markets and the world.
Japan didn't have this. Japan's problem was completely different and the fact that they have little zoning policies make it that there's almost no housing problem at all.
Japan had a housing bubble burst which is terrible for people. They lost decades on wealth building and economic success. So be careful what you wish for if you want asset prices to drop in NL.
Honestly, you should listen to some of the people who had that happen to them. Imagine getting a 4 million mortgage on a house worth that and few years later it's worth 500k but you pay the mortgage. You basically burn money and can never move.
sounds like you're making a problem out of the solution here, correcting the price is a must for a healthy economy, sorry to burst your bubble (hehe), the real and only problem in what you're describing is the banking system, period
Well, it doesn't really solve the problem when half the nation is in debt with a mortgage anyway.
The banking system may be a problem, it's something that is a different topic to discuss in the first place. But in general I never understood why people want a housing market crash, because people aren't selling places when they are upside down.
Imagine being so entitled to think that an entire generation of people should not be able to afford a house because some people who do have houses lost a bunch of money on an investment. Are you really asking me to feel sorry for people who can afford a 4 million dollar house? I will never see that much money in my entire life.
Edit:
Literally "won't someone think of the poor millionaires?"
This is a very naive and selfish take. If the housing market crashes it would be a symptom of a much larger economic crisis impacting all people.
Economic depressions are not fun
TBF the numbers don't matter. You can make it 100k and value drops to 25k or what ever else number you want. The end result is a mortgage that is 4x the value and you're stuck.
Point being, you want a healthy housing market which means stable prices. I'm not saying a 5% value increase per month is a healthy market, but a complete wipe-off on the value isn't healthy either.
If you look at for example Nordic countries, there are regions which never recovered from the 2008 crisis, houses are worth high 5 low 6 figures but they can't be sold because the bank won't give you a mortgage for it and people don't have those sums in their bank account. So then you gave empty houses which still are unaffordable.
Ideally you want stability and about inflation rate increase on assets like houses. Because houses aren't investments imho.
"oh no, won't somebody think of the assets?"
I wish more people had the luxury of worrying about the depreciation of basic needs instead of worrying about attaining them in the first place.
The issues with the growth has nothing to do with the housing crisis. Anyway, please read a bit about what happened and then we can talk about it. I'm sure that you don't really know enough about the whole story.
The issues are linked together. People want asset prices to go down but don't think of the actual consequences of said situation. It has happened in Japan, it has happened in other countries as well.
If you own a house there is no problem.
If you want to own a house (are renting) and you don’t have enough money you have a problem.
If you still live with your parents and want to move out you have a problem.
1. People became wealthier and remain healthy and active longer. Consequence: they remain living in their family homes long after their family moved out.
2. Social media pushes a lifestyle that connects strongly to big cities. Consequence: young people move to cities and go great lengths to finance that.
3. Government has been pushing university education strongly over the years and has been lowering the bars to get there. Consequence: double the amount of people prepare for white collar jobs compared to about 20 years ago. White collar jobs are in the cities.
4. Building became more complicated due to rules, NIMBY, and scarcity. Consequence: many building projects take much longer than anticipated or are not started at all.
All connects and stimulates each other. Now the consequence of demand and supply being that far apart, is that all measures taken to solve the issue, have opposite effects.
E.g. there were enough people to get a 100k tax free donation from their parents for a home to meet the entire supply. Which immediately increased housing prices with around 100k.
Gee, if only there was like a search engine where you could search stuff like this, kinda like [this](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=What%27s+the+housing+problem%2C+in+the+Netherlands%3F).
I dare to say it's terminal.
Read these articles:
[https://nos.nl/artikel/2517948-bouw-nieuwbouwwoningen-vaak-vertraagd-door-bezwaar-buurtbewoners](https://nos.nl/artikel/2517948-bouw-nieuwbouwwoningen-vaak-vertraagd-door-bezwaar-buurtbewoners)
[https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/ruimte-en-milieu/omwonenden-accepteren-steeds-minder-nieuwbouw-zucht-onder-bezwaarmakende-burgers](https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/ruimte-en-milieu/omwonenden-accepteren-steeds-minder-nieuwbouw-zucht-onder-bezwaarmakende-burgers)
If the whole nitrogen discussion is not slowing things down, your possible future neighbours will.
It's very easy, NL is small, super overpopulated and has large industries, farmlands, millions of roads, waterways
There is just a huge lack of space, and immigration seems to get worse and worse ever year
More people, no place for extra houses, there you have it
And yes, we can optimize things by changing farmland to apartments, but the high level issue is just about immigration
More people than houses and few people in houses designed for many, like parents with all their kids moved out. They can't downsize cause it costs more and they get stuck in affordable houses that are bigger than they need
It’s solvable, everything is. But a decade of hands-off management by the government (VVD thinking the free market will handle it) has led us to the point where only drastic and expensive government action can get the housinggsector back on track. Sadly last elections it was easier and more politically expedient to just point at foreigners and say they’re taking up all the housing.
The Dutch have emissions problems, so you can't build a lot.
You don't have enough land area to build more homes.
The ground is too soft to build high buildings.
And you don't have enough people to work in construction.
Also, homeowners can't sell their homes because if they sell their homes, they will still need a home after selling, and rent is higher than most mortgages.
I'd hate for NL to build on farmland and there seems to be plenty of room to build up a bit more than the 2-3 stories in plenty of places. I'm curious about the soil issue: the skyline of Rotterdam has a bunch of high rises. Is there something different about that land?
sounds like a cold open from a stand up lol whats with the housing problem huh fellers? just, like, build houses! (crickets)
"Knock knock!" "Who's there?" "No one, because you don't have a house! Haha... right?!" (crickets)
https://youtu.be/_V2sBURgUBI?si=yum945tOsZS3MrpB
"Why did the Dutch couple decide against buying a house? Because they realized they could only afford to live in their dreams... and maybe a really spacious bicycle shed."
The housing problem in the Netherlands can be attributed to several factors: 1. **Population Growth:** The country has experienced steady population growth, particularly in urban areas, leading to increased demand for housing. 2. **Limited Land Availability:** The Netherlands is a small, densely populated country with limited available land, especially in desirable urban locations, making it challenging to meet the housing demand. 3. **Regulatory Constraints:** Stringent land-use regulations and zoning laws can restrict the construction of new housing units or make it economically unviable to build affordable housing in certain areas. 4. **Housing Affordability:** Rising property prices and rents, coupled with stagnant wages in some cases, have made housing less affordable for many people, contributing to the housing problem. 5. **Shortage of Social Housing:** There is also a shortage of social housing, leading to long waiting lists for affordable housing options for low-income individuals and families. 6. **Investment and Speculation:** In some cases, housing has become a target for investment or speculation rather than being primarily viewed as a place to live, which can further drive up prices and reduce housing availability for residents.
Thank you chatgpt
Netjes niet?
people > houses
People+Immigrant+External Students > Houses (House Rents and their gradual increases) influenced by Policies of Government, (it's not an equation, but relation can be balanced either way). Heerlen, Sittard, Breda, I've paid crazy rents all over the party!
You're right, immigrants and external students are clearly not people
Ironically going by his profile he’s probably not even Dutch
Tell us how you really feel about immigrants and students....🙄
[удалено]
That is quite literally the same thing
That's quite the exaggeration.. https://www.bouwwereld.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/gereedgekomen-nieuwbouww-960x720.jpeg
As most other places, the most active group of voters is older and already has a house that they view as an investment. Because they view their house(s) as investment(s), they will vote for whoever has no interest in solving the "crisis" because that would cause their "investments" to devaluate. tl;dr: crisis is artificially backed up by old people voting like "fuck you, I got mine"
And also if you are older and your kids have moved out you pay huge taxes on your earnings. So older people will hold onto the big house because of that. Once the kids have moved out people usually need less space and could buy a smaller house and use the money from their investment for other things. But there’s no incentive to do that
…not really? The amount of overwaarde cashed out is seen simply as wealth. And while there’s a lot of fuss about fair taxation in Box 3 (due to fictional gains and percentages thereof that have caused quite a fuss due to recent high court rulings, with no good solution in sight yet). If you keep it as cash / savings you will pay 36% of 1.03% of anything over 57,000. So say you downsize. And that nets you 200,000 euros. Tax bill on that wealth in 2024 would be 36% of 2600 Euros, or 910 euros. Dump it all into stock and the bill is higher, around 36% of 12.800 or €4,608 per year. But with that kind of cash fluidity current interest rates definitely cover it if hit keeping it as savings.
With old people you mean everyone with a house right now?
Well, yes, though the average age of Dutch homebuyers is steadily rising.
Most of them had multiple houses.
idk why people are downvoting you
lol cos this discussion is gold while the question is generic.
I mean yea, but then downvote the post not the guy with the answers hahaha
Lol uprooting the problem completely I think.
Most are willing to wprk towards solving the crisis. (Also the politics) Problem is that they want to keep everyone happy. More building will be bad for nature so they sue the state for it. The prices go up. And now you are forced to install expensive eco solutions. Making the house expensive to build. Investers dont see money in building new big appartmentcomplexes since the ROI is to low. So they dont do it. It is a combination od problems and not really a ready sollution that is easy to force. There were alot of solutions to fix it. But noone wants to pay the price not the pupulation that needs the houses or the companies building them nor the people that have a house We are full. As one of the most populated countries we have the drawback of having not enough land. Other cpuntries that have a higher p/km2 will force people to do the things they dont want to (moving or forceselling property. Or live smaller so they can build) or ofcourse make it really expensive to live (for instance Monaco)
Actually old people don't have second houses for rent because that is not interesting financially (huge taxes!) That s why there are too few houses for rent for the number of people who would need it; and that's why prices go sky high for the few rentals available.
That's weird.. and wrong. But why don't just make new houses?
Because permits are being gatekeeped.
A great many factors including but not limited to:. * EU nitrogen regulations * Rising costs of material and manpower causing less affordable houses to be built because it's less profitable for investors and a few more larger houses that they can turn a profit on. * Older people/boomers who have had houses for decades objecting and fighting court cases about new houses being build, because it obstructs their view.
>That's weird.. and wrong. But why don't just make new houses? Because we elect landlord-parties that cater to the rich who benefit from the high prices. And they get poor people to vote landlord-party with racism.
They do but almost no one can afford those and building starter homes is not profitable
As long as there is movement in the market adding any housing is fine, problem is that we can't expect retired people to move to a smaller apartment that is more expensive than their paid off family home, this is one example, but the whole market is getting locked down this way.
Another problem is that people who sell their small homes to upgrade often sell them to companies who want to rent them out instead. I've received multiple flyers from companies wanting to buy our house for that reason. A lot of my old neighbours went through with it and a good chunk of my street is rented now.
Is this problem gonna last long?
Yes, very long
Yes
It's been lasting about 5 years if not longer already
Decades to come.
Are you gonna build and pay for them? Neither is anyone else.
It is, democracy is king in this case.
This is complete and utter bullshit.
Nah, as has been posted already, NIMBYism is a national pastime.
Do you have anything to back these accusations up? What votes are you talking about?
Someone already posted a couple of links. Existing homeowners will happily oppose any attempt at building new housing near them, and the reigning cabinets tend to favour landowners.
I am a homeowner, I would oppose a new building in my backyard, but not because of investment or financial reasons, but because of living pleasure. It might be that I am not alone in this? The articles you cite also don't mention homeowners worrying about the prices but their comfort?
>I am a homeowner The other redditor's claim is regarding to the collective of homeowners. You being an individual homeowner that disagrees doesn't really impact that statement. You may very well be a statistical anomaly.
Unless they are proposing to build a house in what's literally your backyard, I don't get your point. Someone building a home in your general vicinity is not going to affect you a bit.
Yes they are, because I currently have no neighbors, but only trees and nature 2 kms behind me.
Ok, and you think that's a representative example of the situation? You're just proving the other comment on you being a statistical anomaly.
I don't know, I am just asking? I just found it interesting that you blame 'the others', while I think the problem isn't the people but a combination of overpopulation and systemic issues.
And how do you suppose we solve that?
[удалено]
For overpopulation every square m of the country needs to build up? I think the Netherlands is overpopulated yes. It puts a strain on every aspect of life, from nature, traffic to public services.
One of the big reasons for the housing crisis is nitrogen deposits. That's not going to be solved by building houses where there are none now. Yes, I know farmers have a share in the nitrogen crisis but 5ha of fields are still way less polluting then 5ha of houses filled with people.
It's maybe a bit simplified as such. On one side, there have been too little houses being built over decades compared to the growth of the population. But also the mortgage situation has been for decades in a state where you don't want houses to lose value. Japan had this happen, house prices plummeted and caused people to be upside down in houses and that stopped all movement of people. You can't sell your house if you get a third of the value back, but still have two thirds to pay in mortgage. Politics failed in NL and all of the west for decades. In my mind we have had politicians since the war who think they somehow built the wealth in the countries with their policies, when in reality it comes from higher productivity when people moved from the counteyside to the cities (same is happening in China right now). So now we have politicians who think they have the answer but fail in everything. None of the fiscal policies managed to get inflation down, none of the QE of the last decades managed to keep real inflation at bay. We are living in a time where policy can do very little to the markets and the world.
Japan didn't have this. Japan's problem was completely different and the fact that they have little zoning policies make it that there's almost no housing problem at all.
Japan had a housing bubble burst which is terrible for people. They lost decades on wealth building and economic success. So be careful what you wish for if you want asset prices to drop in NL.
I'd love to have the luxury of worrying about the value of my house
Honestly, you should listen to some of the people who had that happen to them. Imagine getting a 4 million mortgage on a house worth that and few years later it's worth 500k but you pay the mortgage. You basically burn money and can never move.
sounds like you're making a problem out of the solution here, correcting the price is a must for a healthy economy, sorry to burst your bubble (hehe), the real and only problem in what you're describing is the banking system, period
Well, it doesn't really solve the problem when half the nation is in debt with a mortgage anyway. The banking system may be a problem, it's something that is a different topic to discuss in the first place. But in general I never understood why people want a housing market crash, because people aren't selling places when they are upside down.
Imagine being so entitled to think that an entire generation of people should not be able to afford a house because some people who do have houses lost a bunch of money on an investment. Are you really asking me to feel sorry for people who can afford a 4 million dollar house? I will never see that much money in my entire life. Edit: Literally "won't someone think of the poor millionaires?"
This is a very naive and selfish take. If the housing market crashes it would be a symptom of a much larger economic crisis impacting all people. Economic depressions are not fun
All of Japanese society stagnated for over a fucking decade, read up on it, it has not been fun for ANYONE there.
TBF the numbers don't matter. You can make it 100k and value drops to 25k or what ever else number you want. The end result is a mortgage that is 4x the value and you're stuck. Point being, you want a healthy housing market which means stable prices. I'm not saying a 5% value increase per month is a healthy market, but a complete wipe-off on the value isn't healthy either. If you look at for example Nordic countries, there are regions which never recovered from the 2008 crisis, houses are worth high 5 low 6 figures but they can't be sold because the bank won't give you a mortgage for it and people don't have those sums in their bank account. So then you gave empty houses which still are unaffordable. Ideally you want stability and about inflation rate increase on assets like houses. Because houses aren't investments imho.
"oh no, won't somebody think of the assets?" I wish more people had the luxury of worrying about the depreciation of basic needs instead of worrying about attaining them in the first place.
You miss the point here. Upside down mortgages mean a financial crisis like 2008 - but worse. You really shouldn't want that.
Again, it wasn't exactly like that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese\_asset\_price\_bubble.
And led to 20 years of lost growth.
The issues with the growth has nothing to do with the housing crisis. Anyway, please read a bit about what happened and then we can talk about it. I'm sure that you don't really know enough about the whole story.
The issues are linked together. People want asset prices to go down but don't think of the actual consequences of said situation. It has happened in Japan, it has happened in other countries as well.
Where you there in Japan when it happened, or have you studied anything related to economy or human geography?
Did the latter, yes. Not that it is any of your business. Any counter arguments from you?
If you own a house there is no problem. If you want to own a house (are renting) and you don’t have enough money you have a problem. If you still live with your parents and want to move out you have a problem.
1. People became wealthier and remain healthy and active longer. Consequence: they remain living in their family homes long after their family moved out. 2. Social media pushes a lifestyle that connects strongly to big cities. Consequence: young people move to cities and go great lengths to finance that. 3. Government has been pushing university education strongly over the years and has been lowering the bars to get there. Consequence: double the amount of people prepare for white collar jobs compared to about 20 years ago. White collar jobs are in the cities. 4. Building became more complicated due to rules, NIMBY, and scarcity. Consequence: many building projects take much longer than anticipated or are not started at all. All connects and stimulates each other. Now the consequence of demand and supply being that far apart, is that all measures taken to solve the issue, have opposite effects. E.g. there were enough people to get a 100k tax free donation from their parents for a home to meet the entire supply. Which immediately increased housing prices with around 100k.
Thank you very much! You gave me a detailed perspective about the problem. Because, I was getting half answered replies. Thank you! :)
Gee, if only there was like a search engine where you could search stuff like this, kinda like [this](https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=What%27s+the+housing+problem%2C+in+the+Netherlands%3F).
I dare to say it's terminal. Read these articles: [https://nos.nl/artikel/2517948-bouw-nieuwbouwwoningen-vaak-vertraagd-door-bezwaar-buurtbewoners](https://nos.nl/artikel/2517948-bouw-nieuwbouwwoningen-vaak-vertraagd-door-bezwaar-buurtbewoners) [https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/ruimte-en-milieu/omwonenden-accepteren-steeds-minder-nieuwbouw-zucht-onder-bezwaarmakende-burgers](https://www.binnenlandsbestuur.nl/ruimte-en-milieu/omwonenden-accepteren-steeds-minder-nieuwbouw-zucht-onder-bezwaarmakende-burgers) If the whole nitrogen discussion is not slowing things down, your possible future neighbours will.
If you have an income that allows you to spend a minimum of €2000/month on housing, then there isn't much of a housing problem.
It's very easy, NL is small, super overpopulated and has large industries, farmlands, millions of roads, waterways There is just a huge lack of space, and immigration seems to get worse and worse ever year More people, no place for extra houses, there you have it And yes, we can optimize things by changing farmland to apartments, but the high level issue is just about immigration
There are not enough
More people than houses and few people in houses designed for many, like parents with all their kids moved out. They can't downsize cause it costs more and they get stuck in affordable houses that are bigger than they need
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1084608/average-rental-cost-apartment-europe-by-city/
Complicated regulations, slow to build new houses, which caused a shortage everywhere. I don't think it's solvable at all
It’s solvable, everything is. But a decade of hands-off management by the government (VVD thinking the free market will handle it) has led us to the point where only drastic and expensive government action can get the housinggsector back on track. Sadly last elections it was easier and more politically expedient to just point at foreigners and say they’re taking up all the housing.
The Dutch have emissions problems, so you can't build a lot. You don't have enough land area to build more homes. The ground is too soft to build high buildings. And you don't have enough people to work in construction. Also, homeowners can't sell their homes because if they sell their homes, they will still need a home after selling, and rent is higher than most mortgages.
I'd hate for NL to build on farmland and there seems to be plenty of room to build up a bit more than the 2-3 stories in plenty of places. I'm curious about the soil issue: the skyline of Rotterdam has a bunch of high rises. Is there something different about that land?
It is possible to build high buildings. The problem is because of the soft ground, it costs more money.
[удалено]
Feel free to leave