Prices Rise Despite Earlier Slowdown
For a while, it looked like the pace of price growth was easing off. The increases had been leveling out over several months, and many expected that trend to hold. But May told a slightly different story.

Peter Hein van Mulligen, chief economist at Statistics Netherlands, admitted it's not entirely straightforward to explain the shift. "We have been seeing house prices showing an upward trend for quite some time," he noted, adding that the conditions still favor further growth. Rising incomes and strong household savings mean that even with elevated interest rates, many buyers can still manage mortgage repayments comfortably.



Part of what had been slowing price growth in recent months was a surge in supply. Investors began offloading rental properties in large numbers, driven largely by tighter regulations in the rental sector. That pushed more homes onto the owner-occupied market, giving buyers more options and taking some heat out of prices.

Van Mulligen believes the most intense phase of that sell-off has likely passed, though it hasn't stopped entirely. How much it will continue to influence prices remains uncertain, he said.

A Market That Bounced Back Strongly
To understand where prices stand today, it helps to look back a few years.

Dutch home prices rose sharply right up until the summer of 2022, then dipped for a period. The recovery beg.