House prices in many regions doubled in nine years

Those who bought a house in the Haarlem region, the Zaan region or the Amsterdam metropolis last summer lost more than double what buyers in the same areas paid in 2013. This is evident from figures published on Tuesday by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Between 2013 and 2022, house prices in the regions mentioned rose on average by approximately 129 percent (from, for example, 200,000 to almost 460,000 euros), the largest increase nationwide. In large parts of Zeeland and Limburg, prices rose the least in the same period, ‘only’ between 67 and 80 percent.

What the CBS figures make clear once again: house prices have gone through the roof throughout the Netherlands in recent years. Up to and including the third quarter of 2019, house price increases were fastest in the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland, South Holland and Utrecht. Houses there have become an average of about 40 percent more expensive in six years.

A tipping point followed the following year; house prices subsequently rose the most in areas outside the Randstad conurbation. From that third quarter in 2019, house prices in the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Overijssel, Drenthe and Zeeland shot up.

The most extreme example: the Delfzijl region. House prices there rose by almost 54 percent between 2019 and 2022, compared to 21 percent in the previous six years. The same development was seen in regions such as Southwest Drenthe, Southwest Gelderland and the Veluwe, but with slightly lower price increases of about 50 percent. Prices in the Randstad have risen on average by about 40 percent in the past three years.

In both periods mentioned, Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and Noord-Limburg alternated as the region with the lowest increase in house prices: in the years 2013-2019 this was Zeeuws-Vlaanderen with no more than 18.7 percent, in the years 2019-2019 In 2022 it was North Limburg, with 36.1 percent.

Since the fourth quarter of 2022, house prices have been falling again in almost the entire country. The average sales price of existing owner-occupied homes was 6.4 percent lower nationally in that quarter than one year previously.