Last year, almost 900,000 people in the Netherlands wanted to move, but could not find a suitable home, according to a survey by Statistics Netherlands. Yet it is certainly not impossible to find a home: in this North Holland region it is (statistically speaking) the easiest to buy a house.
The data in this article comes from the Dutch Cooperative Association of Brokers and Valuers (NVM). In these data, West Friesland, the Noordkop and Texel have been merged into the region ‘Kop van Noord-Holland’. The Amstelland and Haarlemmermeer regions are part of the ‘Greater Amsterdam’ region.
To determine where it is easiest to find a house, we compared several factors. First of all, the supply: where are the most houses for sale and where is the supply rising the fastest? We also look at the price. In which regions are houses affordable and where are prices falling the fastest?
Where is the most supply?
More homes have been put up for sale in the past year. In all regions, except for Greater Amsterdam, the supply has at least doubled in a year’s time. The Amsterdam region lags behind with an increase of 67%. Although the absolute supply, with 2,649 homes, is the highest there.
Supply increased the most in IJmond, by no less than 157% within one year. In the third quarter of 2022, 365 homes were for sale there, a year earlier the counter was still at 142 homes.
See below how the housing supply has grown per region.
What do the prices do?
In the north of North Holland, the houses were the cheapest in the third quarter of 2022. In general, the houses here sold for 392,000 euros.*
*This is a median price, meaning 50% of the prices are below and the other 50% are above. “A median price gives a better picture than an average price,” says Lianne Hans, housing market expert at Kadaster. “An average can be influenced if a very expensive or very cheap house happens to be sold during that period.”
Alkmaar and IJmond follow the top of North Holland with a median price of 435 and 436 thousand euros. The highest median prices can be found in Haarlem (569 thousand) and Amsterdam (536 thousand) at number two.
See how prices have changed by region below.
But prices are not standing still. Prices rose by far the fastest in the Zaan region last year, by 4.9 percent. Greater Amsterdam is number two with an increase of 2.1 percent.
“Usually it is: the closer to the city, the higher the prices,” explains Lianne Hans, housing market expert at Kadaster. That is why she thinks it is surprising that prices in the IJmond are still relatively low. “Because it is quite close to Amsterdam and Haarlem.”
According to the expert, Tata Steel may be involved in this. “We see that nearby natural areas drive up the price, so maybe the opposite is also true.”
Haarlem and IJmond are the only two regions where prices fell last year. In Haarlem they went down by three percent, in IJmond they fell by 2.6 percent. “We have to be careful to immediately conclude that prices are falling,” Hans explains. “We see that sales are now somewhat less in the most expensive segment. That affects statistics, but that does not mean that prices are actually falling market-wide.”
And the winner is…
With falling house prices and rising supply, it seems the IJmond currently the most attractive region in North Holland to look for a house to buy. According to the data, the supply is falling the hardest here, half of which have a price tag below 436 thousand euros. Still quite expensive, but in the current housing market it is the best that the province has to offer.
So if you really want to get out of your parents’ attic, is now a good time to start looking in the IJmond? “It does seem to be a good time for that.”
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