Dutch housing minister Elanor Boekholt-O'Sullivan has told a panel discussion at Expo Real in Munich that stability in government housing policy and improving the investment climate are key to restoring investor confidence in the Dutch market.

Dutch housing minister Elanor Boekholt-O'Sullivan talks about her strategy during the panel discussion

"Over the past few months we have listened to everybody… and we have come up with a 50-point action plan to make the market more interesting for our own investors but also foreign ones," the minister told the panel on making European housing investable.

The housing shortage in the Netherlands – now nearing 400,000 – is a crisis, the minister said. "But we don't behave as if it is a crisis… as long as people don't have a roof over their heads, it is a crisis. And as long as we do not recognise that their crisis is our responsibility… we will not solve this issue."

Low vacancy rates and high demand

Iryna Pylypchuk, research director at Inrev, told the panel ahead of the main discussion, that the Netherlands is one of the most institutionalised residential markets in Europe with a deep pool of capital, vacancy rates of less than 2%, and very strong demand.

Yet the country has been out of favour with international investors, she said, and key policy changes in the past have had a serious impact on the market. That, however, is set to change, she told the panel. "With the latest Dutch budget, there are a lot of very high-quality proposals."

In particular, Pylypchuk highlighted the new government's pledge to look again at the equal treatment of international pension funds when it comes to corporation tax – a key demand made by the Dutch private sector – as well as further revisions to affordable housing legislation.

Slashing red tape

Tackling red tape is also key to bringing back institutional investors, Boekholt-O'Sullivan told the Expo Real audience. "We now have so many layers of regulation impacting on housing… that we have tried to identify all the legislation and… analyse it with the industry itself so we can find out the biggest impact and how things can be simplified."

The bottom line, she said, is to focus on the cost of building new homes and look at the impact of legislation which is making it so expensive. "The idea is to remove them, and to give us a sense of priority. So if this needs 50 steps, or 25 steps or one, I don't care how many. But we need to do this together."

Strong case for Dutch residential

On Tuesday the residential investment climate in the Netherlands is once again in the spotlight with the presentation of new research highlighting the strong case for investing in Dutch real estate.

That research suggests that Dutch residential real estate outperforms comparable residential markets in Europe and North America on both an absolute and risk-adjusted basis, delivering an annual total return of 10.5% between 2016 and 2025.

Time: October 6, 12.30–13.15
Location: Real Asset Media Insight stage, Hall A1, stand 132

The Dutch government's 50-point plan, From Plans to Homes, can be picked up from the Holland Metropole stand (Hall A2, stand 30).