If you can see somewhere how internationally the Meerhoven district is, then it is at Salto primary school. When the school goes out, the whole world passes you by. The international school has about three hundred students, from all over the world. Neighborhood resident Henk Hamers saw it happen. He was one of the first inhabitants in 2003. “The number of expats that have come to live here has increased enormously in the last five years,” he says.
And now he also sold his house to a Spanish-Turkish couple. In the street of Henk, more than half of the residents are now coming from abroad. Real estate association NVM announced on Thursday that the share of international The housing market in the last five years has doubled. In our province, this is par excellence in the Henk district, sandwiched between Eindhoven and Veldhoven.
“Henk’s house is an ideal house for one international”, Says Geert Ansems of Makelaarskantoor van Santvoort that assisted the sale. Expats are not looking for a starter home or a refurbishment.” They want a ready -to -move -in modern house, with a good energy label. They also think it is important that there is good public transport and that there are facilities, such as an international school. Meerhoven has all that and then it is also close to companies such as ASML and the High Tech Campus. ”
“It’s really not that the expat always wins.”
A great demand for homes also does something with house prices. Yet, according to broker Ansems, you cannot say that the expats are the fault of it. “Of course, prices in Eindhoven and Veldhoven have risen, but hardly more than the national average. In a village like Best, for example, where much less international Buying a house, the house price went up much faster. ”
Ansems likes to nuance the image that the Dutchman is being repressed in the housing market. “Of course, expats are overpower, but the Dutch are doing that just as hard. It is really not that the expat always wins.”
But in Meerhoven the expat often wins: sixty to seventy percent of the houses are sold to them. Just like Henk Hamers’ house. Next month he will leave his international street and he does that with pain in his heart. “We don’t leave because of the many foreigners. My wife and I live very nice here. But we are above seventy and the house is getting too big. We have bought an apartment in Veldhoven.”
