Article NH News: Amsterdam is that unaffordable

Houses in Amsterdam that sold for one million euros or more were clustered together for years in the neighborhoods around Museumplein and the canal belt. But due to the continued high demand, houses outside the ring and above the IJ are also increasingly selling for more than a million. Data research from Matrixian, carried out on behalf of NH Nieuws, maps out in which neighborhoods the city’s expensive houses can be found.

It is the kind of house you would actually expect on a country road in a village far outside the city. But the stately house from 1920 where real estate agent Jerry Wijnen provides the tour is actually located in the Oostzanerwerf in Amsterdam North. Asking price: just under a million euros. “It may sell for more than a million, but some work still needs to be done. The market will determine that.” The anonymous seller paid 230,000 guilders for the house 44 years ago. She is still looking for a smaller, single-storey home; it will probably be Weesp.

Houses that change hands for more than a million – until recently this was unheard of in North. But Wijnen is no longer surprised by it. “I had a quick look: in the past 12 months, twenty homes have been sold in this neighborhood with a transaction price above a million.”

This is also evident from figures from Matrixian. This data analysis company maps trends in the real estate market. On behalf of NH Nieuws, they compared the million-dollar transactions of 2012 with those of 2022. “Ten years ago, the million-dollar houses were mainly in the center, Oud-West and Oud-Zuid,” says account manager Bart Meijer. “But if you look at where houses were sold for a million or more in 2022, it is striking that this is also happening more and more in the East and North. Those million-dollar houses are now located throughout the city.”

The general picture is that ten years ago, buyers in the more expensive segment mainly found success in the canals of the center, the more expensive neighborhoods in the South district and very occasionally in the East. In North, one transaction exceeding a million was registered.

In 2022, spectacularly more houses above the million will be sold throughout the city. In the wake of the expensive neighborhoods of South and Center, neighborhoods closer to the ring follow, such as Middenmeer in East and the Hoofddorppleinbuurt and Overtoomse Sluis in West. The Oude Pijp is also striking, where a total of 24 houses were sold in 2022 for a million or more. That didn’t happen once in 2012.

Oud-Zuid is and remains the leader

However, the Museumkwartier and the Apollobuurt remain the neighborhoods with by far the most expensive buildings. In 2012, there were thirty million-dollar homes in these two neighborhoods. In 2022 there were 161, more than five times as many.

And just like in the rest of the city, prices in the higher segment also went through the roof. For example, the average transaction price of a multi-million dollar house around Museumplein has increased by more than 50 percent since 2012.

And what you get for a million these days on the Amsterdam housing market? Less and less. “You see that the price per square meter has risen considerably throughout the city,” Meijer explains. He points to interest rates, which have been historically low over the past ten years. “And when interest rates are low, buyers often dare to offer more money for a house.”

According to the analysts at Matrixian, the fact that interest rates have been rising again recently is not without consequences. “We examined the first quarter of 2023, and we see that fewer houses were sold for more than a million.” No one can predict the future – but, Meijer thinks: “We expect that the enormous growth in the number of million-dollar transactions will level off somewhat.”

But the fact that house hunting is now also attracting buyers with deep wallets to the city’s borders is irreversible, according to real estate agent Wijnen. “I think that can also partly be explained by the corona pandemic,” Wijnen suspects. “Since then, buyers have increasingly been driven by peace and space. You are more likely to find that in Nieuw-West and Noord than within the ring road.”