Comment by apexalpha
1 day ago
The Netherlands grew by 1 million people between 2015 and 2025, roughly 6,5% increase in population.
And (almost) everyone has a house.
Except we don't build flats and suburban one-house-fits-all massive construction projects. We mostly do smallscale development times a 1000, in stead of one big one.
We think it results in better cities.
Though, it is true we should build even more.
Apparently you have a housing shortage of 400k homes, rents increase 5% YoY, and residents spend more than 20% of their income on housing.
Your cities are great though, I love the Netherlands.
Rent increase is not an indicator of the housing market in our country, like it i s in many others.
The Netherlands is 100% rent-controlled.
The 5% increase is because it's tied to inflation, which makes the last few years an anomaly for rent increases.
But yes we do need to build a lot more. I was just pointing out that saying "the West doesn't build anymore" isn't true, we just can't keep up with massive increases in population due to migration.
I don't think you're understanding the comparison here. The Chongqing metro area in 2015 had a population of 13.4m, today it's 18.2m, a 4.8m difference, or 36% growth.
The Netherlands went from 16.9 to 18.1 today, a 1.2m difference or 7.1% growth. Good by nobody-builds-anything regulatory paralysis standards. Standstill by Chongqing standards.
The Netherlands has the biggest housing crisis of continental Europe, too.
> And (almost) everyone has a house.
How come the Netherlands has the most pronounced housing shortage for university students compared to other countries ? Is it because everyone is AirBnb'ing their first and second homes out to tourists?
It's so bad that international students are forced to decline university and graduate school offers. I know because I am in that boat.
https://nltimes.nl/2025/04/22/housing-shortage-netherlands-r...
https://www.goinconnect.com/success-stories/the-student-hous...
Housing in the Netherlands is complex, it's not a free market.
Out of a total of ~8 million homes:
- 4.6 million are owned by the people who live in them.
- 2.3 million are owned by social housing corporations. You have to join a waitlist for these, you can't outbid someone.
And then lastly:
- 1 million houses are "free rentals". But this means they are open to anyone, they are still rent-controlled.
You, together with all other international people, as well as many Dutch people who can't buy and also aren't eligible for social housing are playing musical chairs with only ~13% of the total housing in our country.