Housing associations own one in three Dutch homes

Housing associations own 2.3 million homes in the Netherlands. This is the equivalent of one in three homes. Another 12 percent of dwellings are rented out by other lessors. The remaining 55 percent of homes in the Netherlands are own homes.

Homes by ownership, 2010

Association-owned homes mainly in large cities

Homes owned by housing association are mainly located in large cities. Twenty percent of all homes owned by a housing association are located in one of the four large cities: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. In other strongly urbanised municipalities, too, the percentage of association-owned homes is often higher than the national average.

Other municipalities with a large percentage of housing association homes are Appingedam (in the province of Groningen) and Doesburg (in the province of Gelderland). In both municipalities, associations own 41 percent of dwellings. The lowest percentages of homes owned by housing associations (less than 10 percent) are in Rozendaal (Gelderland) and Margraten (Limburg).

Homes owned by housing associations by municipality, 2010

Neighbourhood concentration

Within the large cities, homes owned by housing associations are mainly clustered in a number of neighbourhoods. There are 10 thousand neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. In 275 of them, three-quarters of homes are owned by a housing association. More than 2 thousand neighbourhoods have no association-owned dwellings at all. These are neighbourhoods with mainly owner-occupied homes.

Willem Regeer, Gelske van Daalen