First-time home buyer mortgage share in largest municipalities Netherlands 2015-2017

This statistic shows the share of first-time home buyers in total mortgage applications in the four largest municipalities in the Netherlands from 2015 to the first half of 2017. In the first six months of 2017, the share of first-time home buyers in the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht reached a value of approximately 39 percent. This is an increase when compared to 2016, but a decrease when compared to the value reached in 2015 when first-time home buyers made up approximately 50 percent of mortgage applications in the four biggest cities in the Netherlands.
In recent years, the housing market has continued to rise in the Netherlands due to low mortgage rates, a recovering economy and a high level of consumer confidence. For example, the average selling price of houses was higher in 2016 than in 2013, when prices reached a low point. In 2017, real estate prices are expected to increase with five percent as a high number of sales, combined with an increasingly scarce supply, are expected to push the housing price up.

In the four largest municipalities, the demand of housing outweighs the supply. In December 2016, the average number of houses for sale in the municipality of Amsterdam was approximately 1,800 with this number reaching an average of 4,300 in December 2014.