[Kal]

Quote From Wendy

We are currently renting a house in Hoofddorp netherlands but have been thinking about buying.
Does anyone know how the housing market here has been affected by the credit crunch?
Have house prices dropped here at all? Is it worth holding out for 6 months? We are
thinking about buying in Hoofddorp or ALMRE in particular. Any info would be greatly received

K.

[this_prisoner_is_opting_out]

If she can wait 6 months then I really think she should.

In my village I've seen 6 properties come on the market in the last 2 weeks... and nothing is moving. We're 9 months behind the UK I think, this is our "August 2007" moment - the people haven't QUITE yet realised...

[WinWin]

The Dutch housing market always sees a very gradual development (I'm a Dutchman living in Amsterdam myself). Definitely no big crash, but maybe a few percents down in the coming year. So if you can wait for a while, do so. If you can't, you certainly won't lose much. If at all.

[tigsrenting]

WinWin, on Nov 5 2008, 09:51 PM, said:

The Dutch housing market always sees a very gradual development (I'm a Dutchman living in Amsterdam myself). Definitely no big crash, but maybe a few percents down in the coming year. So if you can wait for a while, do so. If you can't, you certainly won't lose much. If at all.

What would you call what happened in the 80's to the Dutch housing market?

[WinWin]

I would call that extraordinary conditions that are not seen today. In the early 80's, there was galloping inflation with high (mortgage) interest rates. At the moment, rates have remained low compared to those days.

[tigsrenting]

WinWin, on Nov 10 2008, 10:31 AM, said:

I would call that extraordinary conditions that are not seen today. In the early 80's, there was galloping inflation with high (mortgage) interest rates. At the moment, rates have remained low compared to those days.

I never knew house prices could go down until I worked in Holland. I remember colleagues telling me how they couldn't move on because they were stuck with the house/flat.

How is the housing market in Amsterdam? I used to live in the oude/zuid district very close to Albert Cuypstraat. Rents were always reasonable and never had a problem with any of the Landlords.

[WinWin]

There's been a small but steady rise in sales prices up to this year. The market in Amsterdam is one of the strongest in the country. Prices and rents are such now that affordability becomes an issue.
This is particularly the case for the 'starters'. Starters are the ones who buy or rent a house for the first time. Usually they are young and single, so not a very high income yet. For them, it's really tough to find anything. Still it's nothing compared to London, though.
At this moment there may even be a small drop in prices. 1% or so; but that's seen as a lot here!

[this_prisoner_is_opting_out]

WinWin, on Nov 10 2008, 11:31 AM, said:

I would call that extraordinary conditions that are not seen today. In the early 80's, there was galloping inflation with high (mortgage) interest rates. At the moment, rates have remained low compared to those days.

translated to read: "It's different this time"

[this_prisoner_is_opting_out]

Does anyone have any news or thoughts of NL?

7 months on and I'm thinking of dipping my toes in the water - will go to max 2 x salary and am looking at a 10 year fix at around 5%.

From what I've seen prices HAVE come down - by around 15% where I am (Limburg) - the stuff not shifting is not shifting for a reason - overpriced I suppose.

Does anyone have any idea for the future?

[WinWin]

Being a Limburger myself, I know that Limburg is definitely one of the housing markets that is worst of in Netherlands, all due to the ageing population. But as much as -15% seems rather stiff to me.
If you buy there now, the downward risk is small, but don't expect a big rise in prices in the forseeable future either!

[this_prisoner_is_opting_out]

hi Winwin

Thanks for your input. Well mostly in LI (Maastricht aside!), the prices never went astronomical as in the Randstad - although I'm seeing e.g., 136k down to 119k type stuff, 99k to 89k.

I have this crazy radical idea where I buy a house to live in for up to 10 years - and I don't expect asking prices to be going up at all really. I'm hoping that if they go down a bit more - that because I'm taking out such a comparitively small loan it's not the end of the world.

[soldintime]

The Dutch housing market is sky high due to ability to offset the mortgage intrest payments against the tax you pay. Slowly the governments are introducing rules to limit the amount that can be deducted.

Other rules that have been introduced this year is:
* Mortgages can't be more than 100% - If you look at the buying cost in holland which is about 10-11% it means every first time buyer has to safe for a deposit.
* Mortgages can't exceed the 4 and half times income multiple.

These rules have starved the market from first time buyers.

[bpw]

I think the first question is whether interest rates will increase or not, and if so by how much. House prices have been underpinned by central banks to prevent what Obama tonight described as a potentially catastrophic scenario. He chose his words carefully, and in fact if you do some reading you will see they matched the sentiment and words used by Bernanke and Paulson. As a result the Senate and Congress were forced to approve massive misdirection of taxpayers money into Americas corrupt banks. Now my point is this. Trillions of dollars were used to prevent a global banking collapse. Part of the game was to underpin the US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by lowering base rates thereby preventing mortgage companies from raising rates which would feed back into more failed CDOs / CMOs and therefore failed banks. It worked until this month when we suddenly saw divergence between the bond markets and base rates. As a result mortgages in the USA jumped from a low of 3.99% for a conforming loan to 5.9% a few days ago. This is just the start. I think base rates will start to rise ensure the dollar does not start to slide - when that happens there will be a non-linear response in Bonds and Mortgages. So, house prices in Holland. They are very overpriced, and like the UK represent grotesque intergenerational wealth transfer from younger to older. The nett result in my mind is a period of rising mortage rates, falling house prices, and higher inflation. Frankly, i think the boomer generation are about to get what they deserve.

[this_prisoner_is_opting_out]

Well I went along to the mortgage advisors (De Hypotheeker) on Monday night and I was surprised by what was still on offer, but less than impressed for the following reasons:

i) He had absolutely NO interest in what I want to borrow (< 100k) - but rather "oh you must take out as much as you can, you could get 300k and a really big house". (I want small & cheap to heat! been burned the other way before!)
ii) He did not ask me which type of product I was after... in fact even offered me a "sub-prime" type mortgage as a "cheap" option.

Anyway, that aside. They're still offering loans including KK (the extra ~10%). 10 year fixes are around 5.2%, 30 year fixes under 6%.

I'm taking another 6 months to think about all of this and if I can still get a 10 year fix at 5.2 (or not much more) then I'll take it.

He seemed to think that prices were not "dropping" but they were "normalising".

[WinWin]

Normalising? Ha! There has never been such thing as a bubble in Limburg. Actually, it is amazing how much home you get for your money compared to the cities in the west. Even in South Limburg, which is relatively densely populated and where the interesting places belonging to an 'urban lifestyle' (like Maastricht) are never far away.