The housing shortage is back: nine years on the list of houses

This is demonstrated by an analysis of the RTL Nieuws research editors. House building is the most important solution, but not half of the homes planned are coming, according to housing companies.

Too few homes

Tens of thousands of social housing will be needed in the coming years. The ministry has agreed to build 31,000 social housing rentals per year, says Aedes, the association of housing companies.

But it is far from being possible to build as many houses, says Aedes after RTL Nieuws' questions. President Marnix Norder: "We want to move to 34,000 households a year and we have also planned to do it, but companies do not exceed 15 000. Growth will also stabilize because there are too few construction and because companies have to pay too much tax.As a result, the money is not there to invest. "

The question arises

Peter Boelhouwer, Professor of social housing at the TU Delft, is also skeptical. "It does not surprise me that registration times are so long, we see that companies are offering less housing each year and the demand for this type of housing is increasing dramatically."

RTL News Research Staff has reviewed more than 25,000 social rental properties leased from October 2017 through September 2018 via Woningnet. This concerns the housing of low-income households. The maximum rent for such property is legally fixed at 710 euros.

Date of registration of 29 years

Those who were to join the back of a social housing were on average nine years registered for them a house obtained. But there are great outliers. In Wormer, people were on average even 29 years old. The municipality recognizes that the lists are long. "There is a growing demand for social housing and few alternatives," said a spokesman. "The municipality is committed to increasing the housing stock in general, as well as rented social housing in particular." In the new construction projects in the municipality of Wormerland, 30% of housing must become social leases.

"Very disturbing," says Marnix The long lists of Norder van Aedes. "The housing shortage is back and we can fix it very well."

According to Professor Boelhouwer, the most important solution is to build more houses. "In the short term, we need to think more about temporary houses, such as prefabricated houses or containers, otherwise the pressure will continue to increase, so people can end up on the street."

What is the delay? ;recording?

If someone has a nine-year registration deadline, that does not mean that he's been looking for a home for nine years. You can also register if you already have a home and save time. For example, in many areas, it is a good idea to register when you turn 18 so that you have enough time to register when you really need a home.

Companies also examine search time . . This indicates how long it takes for someone to find a home, from the first time that he meets a house. This is also increasing in many places.

In Amstelveen, for example, people were registered on average for almost 22 years in the last year before receiving a residence. The search time is much shorter: on average 4.8 years in 2018. But the search time also increases in Almere. In 2015, it remained 3.3 years.

Emergency

In principle, the social rental housing in the areas reviewed by RTL Nieuws were based on the duration of the recording: among all the people who meet a house, the time of 39, longest recording in the first round. But not all houses are rented this way.

Twenty percent of research houses were rented to residents urgently. This concerns, for example, people coming from a care facility, refugees holding a residence permit or people whose existing home is being demolished. A quarter of households had a specific target group, such as a retirement home or a start-up home. A little more than half of the houses are therefore rented normally and the average registration time is almost nine years.

Accountability

For this analysis, the accounts of nine regions affiliated with Woningnet.nl are used. . In this, the housing companies indicate on what basis a house is allocated and how long the last resident has been registered. These are all participating regions that use a system based on the time of registration and where all the rented houses are known during the last year (from October 2017 to September 2018 inclusive). These are more than 25,000 houses in total.

To calculate the average registration period, all houses with a specific target group (youth, senior citizens, large families, etc.) are left out, or are rented by random draw or from other sources. urgency, or period of registration is not known. There are then about 10,000 homes

The figures do not therefore cover the whole of the Netherlands. Some regions work with other systems, for example on the basis of points. In addition, many regions only publish leased homes in the last three months. To avoid seasonal and similar influences, it was decided to look only at the regions for which data are available for a whole year.