Friday, December 13, 2024

Karola Grünenbaum’s column about Real Estate

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DIPLOMAT MAGAZINE “For diplomats, by diplomats” Reaching out the world from the European Union First diplomatic publication based in The Netherlands Founded by members of the diplomatic corps on June 19th, 2013. Diplomat Magazine is inspiring diplomats, civil servants and academics to contribute to a free flow of ideas through an extremely rich diplomatic life, full of exclusive events and cultural exchanges, as well as by exposing profound ideas and political debates in our printed and online editions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2014 – A general overview on the Dutch housing market then and now

At this point of the market I don’t need to point out to you that in the past

years it has been very difficult to sell your home for a price that won’t kill you

financially. The Dutch housing market was like a pressure cooker out of control.

Housing prices dropped dramatically, mortgage interest has increased and then

there are still a lot of dreadful situations. In the Dutch society there are people

who can’t pay their mortgages anymore for whatever reason and therefore loose

their properties.

If your home has a bigger mortgage than value, you certainly need the written

permission of your bank to sell the property and come to an agreement to settle

the balance afterwards. Unfortunately, this was in many cases what had to be

done. Then there is the other category of people – usually above the age of 40

years who have bought already long time ago a property or even inherited one

and who have a profit when selling.

Generally spoken, there are two categories of people wanting to buy a new

home. The first are the so-called “new comers” – the starters, who are in a great

position. They have nothing to sell in this market. They can go directly to a bank

and determine how much money they can receive as a mortgage. As starter you

should notify that this is the market to buy. When you are buying for the first

time I can highly recommend you to be advised.

The second category are the people who need to sell their home before they can

afford to buy a new one.

For now I would like to dedicate some attention to the housing prices. Usually

the main question that rises is in which direction will the housing prices go in

2014?

There are many factors playing a major role in this. Lot of decisions are coming

from the European Central Bank. If they are deciding that it will be more

expensive for our banks to lend money, then it will affect our savings interest.

For the moment it is low and it will be kept low for the time being. But once our

economy is going to get better, also this will change. However, the recovery of

our economy is still very fragile!

As a real estate agent I predict the prospect on 2014 are positive. One of the

reasons is that there is a significant growth of starters wanting to buy their first

home.

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