How The Netherlands Failed At Housing

How The Netherlands Failed At Housing

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Video by:
Oliver Franke
Research & writing:
Charles Street, Oliver Franke
Edit & Animations:
Oliver Franke

Full script & sources:

[SpartanChiefNL]

The video doesn’t really explain why the Netherlands will fail at housing. It mainly focuses on available space, but there are many more elements at play here. Space is probably the least of our problems.

[KnowArt]

There's more than enough space. It's purely a political problem. About half the population and about 100% of people in charge are homeowners that have no incentive for cheaper houses (actually quite the opposite). Add some NIMBY's to the mix and changing the zoning of a piece of land to something that would allow it to even apply for a building permit becomes next to impossible.
Even with the recent price increase of materials, building a flat costs very little per home. We're just not allowed to actually do it.

[nickyhanssen]

as a dutchie, I'd like to add that PART OF the real problem is the fact that foreign investment companies are buying up real estate by the hundreds of units, especially in Amsterdam and Utrecht, and then not doing anything with these assets and letting the buildings sit empty. There is no regulation against this. In fact the government ACTIVELY ENCOURAGES this. And don't even get me started on Mr.Bernard of the royal family who owns nearly half of Amsterdam and also has decided to leave the majority of the buildings empty rather than having them be used for their intended purpose. :)
owning a 2nd or 3rd house has nearly no taxation, it's high time this changes. no family should own more real estate than what they need, especially in a country that has a higher population density than India.

[casvermeij]

Yes it is one of the biggest problems in our country now. And the government isnt doing a lot to prevent the worst case scenario. And thanks to dutch bureaucracy it is taking far too much time to build this many houses. I think they need to view this as a national crisis, like the post war period, when building lots of affordable housing was succesfull

[houseplant]

As a Belgian we must say that the Netherlands is doing a very good job for us: young educated students are coming from the Netherlands because of the lower prices here.

[turtle]

I'm a romanian student studying in Eindhoven. Some really good friends of mine were planning on studying at TU/e, got accepted, did all the paperwork but in the end they couldn't come to the university since they could not find housing. They spent over 5000 euros in the process of applications/housing agencies, rent while they physically went to these agencies to find housing and so on. What a shame... As for myself, I did find housing, but the price is enormous. 1350 euros per month for a student is horrid.

[mischatech]

I studied at a Dutch University. Great education, but finding affordable student housing was indeed a hustle.

[SpMeKP]

I like how the video does not mention the exorbitant rents. Leaving in a small city, outside of the main areas still costs 800 per month for a small studio.

[Larsschipper]

I moved away from the Netherlands in 2017. I thought about moving back when my girlfriend broke up with me here in Austria. But after 2 minutes looking online I found out there wasn't anything affordable to rent. Even in the east (Gelderland) where my family lives its hard to find something good and affordable. I'll stay in Austria for now.

[alexsteven.m]

Markets are crashing, inflation is skyrocketing, and the Fed is imposing large interest-rate hikes, while treasury yields are rapidly rising—all of which means more losses for portfolios this quarter. How can I profit from the current volatile market? I'm still debating whether to liquidate my million dollars bond/stock portfolio.

[C]

Ireland has a huge housing problem too and the government responded with rent controls (small landlords sold their rental accommodation) and incentives for investment funds to build apartment blocks (they built apartment blocks for rich international students and IT workers). Our housing market is failing.

[mikementzer]

I hear this misconception being parroted everywhere on the internet, but the Netherlands are NOT the second largest exporter of food in the world, they are the second largest exporter of agricultural goods (mostly flowers and seeds for sowing), indeed in value, not in tonnes (flowers and good genetics seeds are expensive). I would be so happy if one of these days, at least one youtuber will get this right.

[stevenjuan]

*With markets tumbling, inflation soaring, the Fed imposing large interest-rate hike, while treasury yields are rising rapidly which means more red ink for portfolios this quarter. How can I profit from the current volatile market, I'm still at a crossroads deciding if to liquidate my $120, 000 bond/stock portfolio*

[SARUJAN]

I used to be a homeless student in Groningen... really gives a true perspective

[ddiirrkkiiee]

There are also a lot of problems with the neoliberal policies of the ruling parties as their privatisation of the housing market has given big (often times foreign) investors a lot of wiggle room in which it has become acceptable to see housing as an investment more than a need of the people. One result of that is the fact that these investors consiously keep housing empty to drive up the prices of their other properties in those areas. For example: Amsterdam has more empty buildings (around 20k last time I checked in 2022) than it has homeless people. The housing market has been broken by the capitalists. The housing crisis would be much less severe if landlords were to actually cooperate instead of only accumulate

[lukasxss]

2:21 that is a part of why they said this universety's and HBO's get paid per student so they actively seek out international students to use as extra money for funding its not just because of there being no homes available

[cyrilio]

Biggest problem for housing in the Netherlands is priced. Home ownership is heavily subsidized driving house prices up when There’s little to no new homes being built.

[MarijnRoorda]

You're really skimming over the details here. There is a whole other video of room with details here. The biggest cause for the housing crisis in the Netherlands is what we call the "stikstofcrisis" or Nitrogen crisis. Simply put, every municipality has a nitrogen budget. To build all forms of infrastructure, be it houses, roads of nature reserves, they are required first to reduce emissions of nitrogen, before being allowed to "spend" nitrogen in their budgets. On top of that, they have to reduce nitrogen emissions across the country by up to 70% in places. All to preserve the biodiversity across our nation. This means in effect, that both farmers and industry have to be closed, before being allowed to spend the emissions room thus created, on housing or roads.

Naturally, people don't want to hear that they are out of a job because their company produces to much pollution. And thus the national politicians in the Hague don't want to burn themselves on the issue. And so they have forwarded the hot potato to the municipalities. Again, they do not want to burn themselves on the topic either and so the blame has shifted to the provinces. By summer of 2023 the provinces have to come up with a province wide plan to fix the problem of nitrogen emissions. However, to make it even more of a political problem, on march 2023, the dutch public are asked to vote for the provinces political parties. Usually people care very little about this particular vote and typically only about 30% of the nations voters show up for it.

On top of that, it's usually the left side voters who want to change things and they vote in favor of solving the "stikstofcrisis" by removing businesses and farmers based on their emissions, and right side voters who want to keep everything the same. But with the past 12 years having had a center and right wing government in place, and this being just 1 of the many issues that the Netherlands struggle with, there is no telling what the voters will do. This entire crisis was in fact started by the courts. In the Netherlands, the courts can overrule the government and political parties if the government doesn't follow its own rules. The government has forced itself, partly by European laws, but also by its own laws, to reduce emissions, and are now forced to act upon it.

[warfighter]

As a Dutch student being in your mid 20s and having to live at home is mentally tough. My college is in the most expensive city I the country so I can either pay 600 for 1 room or stay at home and help my mom out. It's still funny that we had leave our home and live in an overpriced shack in a shit part of town while young refugee men get newly build homes right across the house we were kicked out of.

[Vikkin]

From January effectively all universities stopped active recruitment of foreigners, but they have jointly stated their disapproval. At my university in Breda, it's a growing problem that students cannot start the academic year as they have no accommodation. For me, it took till December till I found a place, some rooms have 600-700 applicants within a day.