Fewer houses are being sold in our province than a year ago. Last quarter the number of sales fell by eleven percent compared to the same quarter a year ago. After Drenthe, Brabant thus recorded the largest decrease in the number of houses sold of all provinces. This is evident on Monday from new figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in collaboration with the Land Registry.
Nationally, more than 50,000 homes were sold in the past quarter, a 6.4 percent decrease compared to the same quarter last year.
The new figures also show that the rise in house prices is leveling off throughout the Netherlands. The average selling price of a house in the second quarter was still 18.4 percent higher than a year earlier. Now that percentage is 11.9 percent. In Brabant, the price increase of 12.5 percent compared to a year earlier is just above the national average.
The graph below shows the decline in the number of sales per province, as well as the development of house prices (source: LocalFocus):
Waiting for privacy settings…
Price increases ‘really a thing of the past’
If you look at house prices on a monthly basis, according to CBS, prices in September fell the fastest since May 2013. Compared to August, prices fell by 0.7 percent on average. In August, there was still a 0.1 percent decrease compared to July. Reason for CBS economist Frank Notten to conclude that the time of price increases is now “really a thing of the past”.
According to President Klaas Knot of De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), anyone who wants to buy a house in the near future should not be deterred by the fall in house prices. He said so a week ago. He regarded the developments in the housing market as a “welcome relief”.
Increasing mortgage interest
According to Knot, the falling house prices are mainly a result of rising mortgage rates. As a result, people can now borrow less. Ultimately, however, there should be a new equilibrium in the market.
Knot also pointed out that many homes are still being sold above the asking price and that there is still a major shortage of homes in the Netherlands. In addition, according to him, you should not see a house as an investment, but you buy a house because you want to live in it.