The housing market is more accessible to first-time buyers. The percentage of home seekers who have bought their first home has increased over the past six months and the absolute number of first-time buyers has also risen. In the first six months of this year, 28,000 people bought their first home. That is 1,200 more than in the first half of 2022. The share of first-time buyers in the housing market has also increased from 40 to 45 percent. That turns out on Tuesday from figures from real estate association NVM.
Read also: New law should give the municipality more power against rogue landlords
The NVM speaks of a “striking increase” since the total number of home sales is lower than in 2022. The increase among first-time buyers is at the expense of investors and so-called transfer buyers, who move into a new home after purchasing their first home. Lana Gerssen, chair of the real estate agents’ club, says that the ‘financial position of first-time buyers’ has generally improved thanks to ‘more relaxed lending standards, strong income increases and lower house prices’.
According to the NVM, this is a “welcome development”, because starters have had difficulty intervening in the housing market in recent years. Yet the brokers see that not all first-time buyers are covered: home seekers without a savings account often cannot borrow enough to buy a house. As an example, the NVM cites a single starter with an average gross salary (38,000 euros per year); he can borrow 159,000 euros and is therefore eligible for only 3 percent of the available houses.